Rick,

     Do you get any boot messages, or does it just hang immediately after
you type >>> boot dka0 at the SRM console?

     I had a similar problem with my 500a when trying to boot from an IDE
drive because I had the drive on the secondary IDE controller. 
Moving it to the primary IDE controller fixed the problem (and now
the CD-ROM is on the secondary).  I see you've already tried this
though?

     If you're able to use the SRM console I'd guess there's still hope
since a number of devices must work properly for the SRM console to
appear.  What does ">>> show dev" say?

--
c v k @ z y b x . c o m

<quote who="Rick Collette">
> [Try #3 to get this email sent - I really think I have a deep dislike
> for Exchange/Outlook...]
>
> Here's what I have done:
>
> Installed NetBSD 1.6-RELEASE from CD-ROM.  I installed everything and
> took all the defaults on partitioning.
>
>
>
> The IDE HDD is dkb0, so from SRM I did: >>>boot dkb0 -flags 0,0
>
> Then it said it was booting from the right device and just sat there.
> For hours.
>
>
>
> So I read a bit more and dug around and found something about running
> installboot.
>
>
>
> I booted to CD, dropped to the shell, and followed the instructions for
> 1.4 or later on using installboot.
>
>
>
> Again, SRM, boot dkb0, wait for hours.
>
>
>
> So I moved the IDE drive to the first controller and removed the cdrom
> completely.
>
>
>
> Again, SRM, boot dka0, wait for about 1 hour this time.
>
>
>
> Am I looking at a dead 433au? My experience is predominantly with Sun,
> HP, IBM, and Intel hardware.. but I have access to more of these and
> would really like to have them working with NetBSD.
>
>
>
> The reason I am using IDE is the QLogic controller I have is fried.  I
> originally tried with it, but after getting kernel failures on boot with
> both net and free, I tried the scsi card in an Intel based system and
> found the card to be dead.
>
>
>
> Any help in resurrecting my poor alpha is MUCH appreciated.
>
> Rick Collette
> Sr. Unix Systems Administrator
> Quest Software (R&D - Pleasanton, CA)
> (925)734-4749 (Desk)
> (650)248-6182 (Cellular)
>  (925)734-4701 (Fax)