> Date: Thu, 02 May 1996 09:17:49 -0500
> From: Ron Parise <parise@gelato.gsfc.nasa.gov>

> I am trying to install netBSD on an old Sun 3/50M. The machine has 4 MB of
> memory, an Adaptec scsi/esdi disk controller with one 630 MB drive, and a
> 150 MB Archive Viper scsi tape. Yes I am using the install-11-p1 distrib.
>
> I am at the point of trying to boot miniroot from the swap partition. After
> a couple of pages of messages including a bunch of data errors from the
> scsi probe which are either devices it doesn't find or partitions that
> don't exist on my disk I get the following:
> 
> rd0 at mainbus0
> rd1 at mainbus0
> root on sd0b
> swap on sd0b
> dump on sd0b
> WARNING: clock gained 139 days -- CHECK AND RESET THE DATE!
> Preserved 15966 blocks of miniroot leaving 8752 pages of swap
> si0: unrecognized MESSAGE EXTENDED; sending REJECT
> si0: unrecognized MESSAGE EXTENDED; sending REJECT
> si_dma_start: fifo_count=0xffff, xlen=0x1e00
> Stopped at _Debugger+0x6: unlk a6
> db>
> 
> at this point if I issue a continue command I get:
> 
> si0: fifo_count=0x200  
> kernel text/data/bss not mapped
> >
> 
> and although I appear to be at the monitor prompt, the machine is
> totally dead and requires a power cycle to fix it.
> 
> Can anyone help me with this?

My guess would be faulty SCSI cabling.  Just a guess...
Do you have any SunOS tapes you could use to verify that
the hardware is OK?  Have you tried the PROM diagnostics?

Gordon