On Fri, 22 Sep 2006, Jason Mitchell wrote:

> If you have another motherboard you can use, then the following will work.
> You'll need to contents of /usr/mdec from NetBSD 1.6.2. If you don't have
> easy access to a NetBSD 1.6.2 system I can send you a tar file.

Thanks, very kind of you but luckily I had the CD.

> 1) Move the hard drive to another motherboard
> 2) Install NetBSD 3.x
> 3) Reboot
> 4) Run the 1.6.2 version of installboot. For an ide drive "installboot
> /usr/mdec1.6/biosboot.sym /dev/rwd0a" should work.
> 5) Move the hard drive to the Epia motherboard
>
> This works for me on an Epia board and NetBSD 3.0.1.

As I really really hate screwdrivers I was in luck and had a 1.6.2 CD 
lying around.

I ended up doing the following:

A) Install minimal 1.6.2 (Only Kernel + Base + etc)
B) Log in as root and insert the 3.0.1 CD:
# mkdir /cdrom
# mount /dev/cd0a /cdrom
# mv /netbsd /netbsd.1.6.2
# cp /cdrom/i386/binary/kernel/netbsd-INSTALL.gz /netbsd
# shutdown -r now
C) The 3.0.1 install kernel should now be booting from the harddrive 
(make sure you're not booting the CD again!)
D) When the installer asks: 
"Do you want to update the bootcode in the Master Boot Record to the 
latest version of the NetBSD bootcode?" answer "NO"
E) When the installer asks:
"Would you like to install the normal set of bootblocks or serial 
bootblock?" answer "g: Use existing bootblocks"

The above worked for me without access to additional hardware. As 1.6.2 
is EOL it is not available on netbsd.org anymore - this makes it 
seriously difficult to bootstrap these boards. I'd really like to 
summarize both methods for the i386 faq but without 1.6.2 there is not 
much of a point.

I really hope a custom boot disk is included in 3.1+ until PR 26007 is resolved.

-- 
Kind Regards,
Claus Andersen