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Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - Printable Version

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Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - roach-commuter - 01-03-2021

I've had this Indigo2 Impact for years. When I purchased it , it was diskless. I turned it on, it chimed and on the screen I saw the familiar menu so I powered it off and never gave it a second thought , for years. Now fast forward to last week. I prepped a disk, put it in one of the drive trays, fired on my raspi-booterizer and that's when issues began. Any attempt to install Irix would end up with A) a black/blank screen or B) hanging indefinitely , right after the copying of the miniroot. I have tried several things, including different Irix versions, installing irix 6.5.22 on an Octane and then moving the disk to the Indigo2, Installing via Cdrom, Installing via Network, Installing headless using a serial line etc. At some point I tried installing OpenBSD 6.7 on it , which succeeded. So I am like : wtf? right? Now I am running the diagnostics from the prom menu and we'll see if it finds anything. The only indications of something amiss is that, when I tried running Irix from the disk I installed in my Octane (and moved to the Indigo), it gave an error:

Code:
5) Enter Command Monitor                                                 
                                                                         
Option? 1                                                                


                           Starting up the system...
                                                                               
                                                                               
Exception: <vector=Normal>                                                     
Status register: 0xa2<IPL=8,KX,UX,MODE=KERNEL>                                 
Cause register: 0xffffffff80000014<BD,CE=0,EXC=WADE>                           
Exception PC: 0xa8000000200050b8, Exception RA: 0xa800000020189894             
Write address error exception, bad address: 0xa7fffffb1f8f2888                 
Local I/O interrupt register 2: 0x0xc8<EISA,SLOT0,SLOT1>                       
  Saved user regs in hex (&gpda 0x9000000020f01dd8, &_regs 0x9000000020f01fd8):
  arg: 0 3ffffffffffff a800000020494000 a7fffffb1f8f2880 a800000000000000 fffff8
  tmp: a800000000000000 0 1 ffffffff9fc62050                                   
  sve: 8125 9000000020f0b040 9000000027fff438 9000000027fff7c8 ffffffff9fc521480
  t8 0 t9 8 at 0 v0 ffffffffaff50000 v1 0 k1 ffffffffbad11bad                  
  gp a8000000203f1d70 fp 9000000027facfb8 sp a8000000203d2540 ra a80000002018984
                                                                               
PANIC: Unexpected exception

This is the results of diagnostics:

Code:
Option? 3                                                                      
                                                                               
                                                                               
                         Starting diagnostic program...                        
                                                                               
                       Press <Esc> to return to the menu.                      
                                                                               
              Checking for Distribution CD-ROM on scsi(0)cdrom(3).             
                     Booting IDE from Distribution CD-ROM.                     
                                                                               
SGI Version 6.5 IP28 IDE field  Apr  4, 2002                                   
                                                                               
                   System: IP28                                                
                Processor: 175 Mhz R10000, with FPU                            
     Primary I-cache size: 32 Kbytes                                           
     Primary D-cache size: 32 Kbytes                                           
     Secondary cache size: 1024 Kbytes                                         
              Memory size: 128 Mbytes                                          
                 Graphics: Solid Impact                                        
                SCSI Disk: scsi(0)disk(1)                                      
               SCSI CDROM: scsi(0)cdrom(3)                                     
                                                                               
Testing Impact graphics.                                                       
TEST RESULTS:                                                                  
CPU tests completed.                                                           
FPU tests completed.                                                           
Audio tests completed.                                                         
SCSI tests completed.                                                          
Impact graphics board tests completed.                                         
Diagnostics completed - press <Enter> to continue                              
                                                                               
ide>>


Do you guys have any idea what this may be? I have been told I should take it apart and reassemble it. Do you have any guidance on how to dismantle it completely? Ideas? Tips?

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - Irinikus - 01-03-2021

I installed IRIX 6.5.22 onto mine across a network, using the DVD drive in my Tezro to read the IRIX CD’s and I don’t recall encountering such an error!

We’re you able to run fx from the command monitor and correctly partition and label the system disc?

Are you sure that it’s not just shifting into a video mode that’s not compatible with your monitor?

I know the Tezro shifts to a SOG analog mode as it loads the miniroot. This might be something similar?

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - Raion - 01-03-2021

That fault indicates an issue with your riser card or mainboard, especially the eisa. Do you have any ISA cards installed?

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - roach-commuter - 01-03-2021

(01-03-2021, 05:03 PM)Irinikus Wrote:  I installed IRIX 6.5.22 onto mine across a network, using the DVD drive in my Tezro to read the IRIX CD’s and I don’t recall encountering such an error!

We’re you able to run fx from the command monitor and correctly partition and label the system disc?

Are you sure that it’s not just shifting into a video mode that’s not compatible with your monitor?

I know the Tezro shifts to a SOG analog mode as it loads the miniroot. This might be something similar?

I was able to run fx normally, and I have tried with 2 different monitors (one SGI GDM17E11 and a regular Samsung with a SOG adapter) and they both show a black screen. Also when I attempt installing via serial I get this :
PHP Code:
1) Remote Directory  2)[Local CD-ROM]  
      *a) Local SCSI CD-ROM drive 3

Enter 1-2 to select source type, a to select the source, <esc> to quit,
or <enter> to start: 2


1) Remote Directory  2)[Local CD-ROM]  
      *a) Local SCSI CD-ROM drive 3

Enter 1-2 to select source type, a to select the source, <esc> to quit,
or <enter> to start: 


Insert the installation CD-ROM, then press <enter>: 

bootfile not set, using default.
Copying installation program to disk.
......... 10% ......... 20% ......... 30% ......... 40% ......... 50% 
......... 60% ......... 70% ......... 80% ......... 90% ......... 100% 

Copy complete 


And then the cdrom stops spinning and it just sits there indefinitely
(01-03-2021, 05:28 PM)Raion Wrote:  That fault indicates an issue with your riser card or mainboard, especially the eisa. Do you have any ISA cards installed?

No cards, except fort the Solid Impact. But  I have tried moving it to a different GIO slot and/or removing it completely with no change.

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - robespierre - 01-03-2021

Suspect a wrong version of the system software that is not compatible with your hardware configuration.

(01-03-2021, 01:47 PM)roach-commuter Wrote:  installing irix 6.5.22 on an Octane and then moving the disk to the Indigo2
This won't work. IRIX installs are not universal, they only support specific platforms.

Can you walk us through the method you used to install 6.5.22 from CDROM? Clicking on a button is not going to do it, text commands are required for this.

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - roach-commuter - 01-04-2021

(01-03-2021, 07:17 PM)robespierre Wrote:  Suspect a wrong version of the system software that is not compatible with your hardware configuration.

(01-03-2021, 01:47 PM)roach-commuter Wrote:  installing irix 6.5.22 on an Octane and then moving the disk to the Indigo2
This won't work. IRIX installs are not universal, they only support specific platforms.

Can you walk us through the method you used to install 6.5.22 from CDROM? Clicking on a button is not going to do it, text commands are required for this.

Well I first booted fx with a : boot -f dksc(0,3,8)sash64 dksc(0,3,7)stand/fx.64 and prepped the disk. Then I used the menu for the installation from cdrom

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - Irinikus - 01-04-2021

Should it not be "sashARCS" on that machine?

"boot -f dksc(0,3,8)sashARCS dksc(0,3,7)stand/fx.ARCS --x"

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - roach-commuter - 01-04-2021

(01-04-2021, 08:48 AM)Irinikus Wrote:  Should it not be "sashARCS" on that machine?

"boot -f dksc(0,3,8)sashARCS dksc(0,3,7)stand/fx.ARCS --x"
It's an Impact 10000 I get 'execute format error' if I try what you wrote

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - robespierre - 01-04-2021

(01-03-2021, 01:47 PM)roach-commuter Wrote:  It's an Impact 10000 I get 'execute format error' if I try what you wrote

That's right, the R10000 Indigo2 (IP28) is a 64-bit machine and requires 64-bit boot files.

I re-read your symptoms and I think the problem is this:

Quote:bootfile not set, using default.

The "2. Install System Software" button runs a script to start the installation process. What it does is roughly this:

1. Load sash from the installation media/server
2. Use sash's "install" command to copy the miniroot from the media/server onto the swap partition. (note that a swap partition is required; it should be created by fx's "create root disk" setup, although its size is often customized)
The miniroot is a small version of the IRIX system files used to run the installation program (inst), everything but the kernel.
3. Load the IRIX kernel from the media/server and pass it parameters telling it where to find its root partition (which is temporarily the miniroot on the swap partition)

Now Step 3, loading the IRIX kernel, requires a kernel specialized to the system platform. In your case it is "unix.IP28". But from the message printed "bootfile not set", we know that something slipped and it somehow forgot which kernel to load. The IP28 firmware has other bugs, so this just seems to be another bug.

Have you tried doing "resetenv" before starting the installation? It might help. Alternatively, you can do the above numbered steps manually: instructions forthcoming.

RE: Indigo2 Impact mysterious Irix install woes - Irinikus - 01-04-2021

I used the process covered in this thread to install IRIX on my Indigo2 R10000 Max IMPACT using my Tezro's DVD ROM over a network: Make sure you when you modify the "/etc/bootptab" file, you enter the correct line for the IP28!!!

http://forums.irixnet.org/thread-1120.html