Installing Solaris 9 from cdrom: can't read disk label

Solaris 9 installation disk: can't read disk label   Sun, 05 October 2003 15:51  
 
Hi all, have just purchased a used Ultra 10 440 MHz, 1GB RAM, 2 9GB drives and it won't boot up. When I turn the machine on it gets as far as showing the following:

SunOS Release 5.6 Version Generic_105181-17 [UNIX(R) System V Release 4.0]
Copyright (c) 1983-1997 Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Then the screen flashes a message so fast I can't read it (except something about "panic" and "mount") and then reboots endlessly like this.

I burned an installation disk for Solaris 9 (downloaded the SPARC install and burned on my Windows machine) and tried hitting Stop A during the boot and typing boot cdrom [[ -nowin]] per the Sun installation instructions, but this fails also with:

Boot device: /pci@1f,0/pci@1/1/ide@3/cdrom@2,0:f File and args: [[ -nowin]]
Can't read disk label
Can't read disk label package
Evaluating: boot cdrom [[ -nowin]]
Can't open boot device

And then it goes back to try to boot from the hard drive, I guess, and the whole endless reboot thing comes up.

I've tried hunting all over the net via Google but I'm too new to Solaris to have any clue what the heck is going on. Some other people out there seem to have gotten similar errors due to a bad CD ROM drive or a faulty read head, or a bad motherboard, etc.

I have also hunted on the net for a Solaris install tutorial of some kind, have bought "The Complete Reference: Solaris 8" manual and Sam's "Teach Yourself UNIX" but I don't seem to find what I need anywhere.

Anyway, I did some more research and I have come up with the following possibilities:

1. The CD-ROM drive itself is bad.

I did a probe-ide and found the model number is CRD-8322B, which, after a quick Google search, I was able to find for sale as "32X LG-GOLDSTAR CD-ROM IDE INT GREY CRD-8322B" for $11.50. So what the heck, I've ordered one and I'll try putting it in. But I don't think it's the problem, as I can drop a CD in on the current CD-ROM and listen to it just fine, and the probe-ide finds the drive OK. Is it still possible that the drive is bad?


2. The disk is not readable by the CD-ROM.

Not sure about this one, I burned it in a HP CD-RW burner using a standard 650 MB TDK CD-R and Adaptec Easy CD Creator 4. I chose the option to burn a data disc and close the session when done. I have read about a 512 byte sector requirement, but apparently this does not apply to Solaris 2.6, which is what I seem to have on this machine. However, is it possible that my SPARC platform disk downloaded from http://wwws.sun.com/software/solaris/binaries/singleinstruct ions.html cannot be used because it was burned on a Windows machine?


3. Something is wrong with the alias for the CD-ROM.

This I think is more likely, as when I attempt to boot with the command boot cdrom, the CD-ROM drive does not appear to light up, although I can hear the disk whirring inside. However, I still don't know how to read the full device name properly nor how to use the command to change the alias. I guess I could use some help with this. The following link got me thinking along these lines: http://forums.sunhelp.org/showthread.php?s=ffa055644b93dd65e c2c135b4afada83&threadid=432

Also , at http://supportforum.sun.com/sunos/index.php?t=msg&th=245&start=0&rid=1186&S=57e675e02def42ee23a0842420dbe4c4 I found these instructions:

You should:
ok devalias cdrom - this will show you current path to internal CD. Use this to determine what new alias should look like.
ok setenv auto-boot? false
ok reset-all
ok probe-scsi-all - find the path to the new cdrom - write it down & write target # as well
ok show-disks - find the exact path you just wrote down and type that letter
ok nvalias cdrom2 [Ctrl] + [y] which will paste that path. Finish with @sd6,0:f if target 6 and an Ultra class machine [Return]
ok reset-all
ok boot cdrom2

But I can't do a probe-scsi as this is an Ultra 10 machine that uses IDE, and probe-ide does not give me a path.  Is there some similar command set I can try?


4. Something is wrong with the alias 'disk' (which is the whole reason I'm trying to boot from the CD-ROM).

I could troubleshoot this further if there was some way to read that error message that flashes on the screen so quickly before the reboot, and then is gone before I can read it! If I could just see what the full error is that it gives when it tries to boot off the disk, then I could troubleshoot that. Does anyone know how to get that info from the OpenBoot PROM? Is there a command or a log or something that I can look at?  How do people post all these text dumps of the errors they see on their screen-- I'm just manually typing the stuff in on my Windows box from what I visually see on the screen of my Sun machine.

Many thanks in advance for any help that can be offered.