>you did not say what version of microcode is in the multia.
>
>I just bought one in Oct.  It had 3.7.xx and it would kind of do the
>same thing.
>I went to the dec site, downloaded the ucode update. updated the multia
>and it was like a different machine!  ucode version is now 3.8.xx
>something.

Thanks, that fixed the big problem, the system now did a successful load 
from ftp.netbsd.org, well I should say it was successful after the third 
attempt. Many problems with the SCSI controller in the 19981016 snapshot 
I'm using:

ncr0: aborting job...
ncr0:0: ERROR (90:) (0-20-0) (0/3) @ script a0:430000a8).
ncr0: script cmd = 878b0000
ncr0: regdump: da 00 00 03 47 00 00 1f 31 08 00 20 80 00 08 02.
ncr0: restart (fatal error)
sd0(ncr0:0:0): COMMAND FAILED (9 ff) @0xfffffe0000031800.

It does this and sometimes starts working just fine, but usually it gets 
caught in a loop and the only way to get out is to power it down.

I remember seeing a comment somewhere that the IDE interface is less 
buggy, I guess I can try that for one of the systems, but the other one 
needs to be SCSI.  Or maybe I can get it to netboot?

Do any of you know if you can netboot a NetBSD box from a FreeBSD box?  
I'm wondering because I have a FreeBSD box running as my main file server 
at home right now and I can give it more of a load ;)

-Sean

>IF you need the site, I will zap it back to you....wait....
>this was my heads up from Kevin:

>> thanks to everyone for the help and suggestions!
>> In booting from floppy (built from CD or from current earlier this
>> month), I get there partially.
>> What I get:
>> If I leave the floppy in and powerup, I get thru the usual POTS stuff,
>> and then get a dump (screens and screens of it).
>> If I put the floppy in after POTS, and b dva0 - it hangs.
>> If I put the floppy in after POTS and b dva0.0.0.0.1 I get the beginning
>> of the usual NetBSD boot.  once I even got beyon the opening with the +.
>> and +o thing.
>
>Update the SRM & Arc firmware from:
>
>ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/interim/udb/
>
>I had the same problem and this solved it.  When you get the SCSI drive
>working let us know how stable it is, I have been having probs with the
>NCR driver/controller.


---
Sean J. Schluntz                           schluntz@agames.com
Sr. Office Systems Administrator                  408-434-5804
Atari Games Corporation                  http://www.agames.com