On 21 Jul 2001, otaku wrote:

> I've been using NetBSD for a few years now. Currently I have
> NetBSD/i386 1.4 installed and I wish to upgrade to NetBSD 1.5.1.
> In the past, I have downloaded the updated kern.tgz set, moved my
> old kernel to netbsd.old, and installed the new kernel in /. I
> then restart to make sure the kernel runs, and then continue by
> installing the base.tgz package, et al...
>
> I have done everything I described above for NetBSD 1.5.1. When
> booting, though, I get the error "Inappropriate file type or
> format" when it tries to load wd0a:netbsd. It then will switch
> over to wd0a:netbsd.old.

You need to install ELF capable bootblocks. I think they appeared in
1.3.2 or 1.3.3, so if you only install the 1.4 bootblocks, that should
be sufficient. Try...

/usr/mdec/installboot /usr/mdec/biosboot.sym /dev/rwd0a

An even better plan, if possible, would be to use the installer. That
will update the bootblocks at install time, and also remove some
obsolete files. (Simply unpacking the kernel and sets does neither.)
You'll still want to merge your old "/etc" (saved by the installer as
"/etc.old") by hand, but you'd have to do that anyway.


Frederick