Problems Booting YDL From a Firewire Drive

[brian at nutthouse.org]

Thank you for the information. Unfortunately this part of the information 
that you supplied I believe is the thing to focus on. 

** Instead, when I type "L", I am taken back to the GUI screen -- only this 
time the labels of the
drives are black boxes -- and, while the cursor moves, nothing else can be 
done. ** 

This is either booting you back into open firmware. Which even if yaboot was 
not configured properly you should not get booted back into openfirmware. 
You would only get a boot error. Then the unit locks up which isn't always 
hardware but likely. If you happen to have anouther unit that you could use 
to install yellowdog onto that same FW drive that would be a good test of 
the drive. Anouther option would be to try anouther drive and enclosure on 
the same unit you are currently having problems with. If you encounter the 
same error you may have a problem with firewire. 

I do troubleshoot hardware problems on a daily basis and have seen MANY 
strange things. I do hope that your turns out to be a different problem as 
it can get expensive to fix. I hope this helps you and GOOD LUCK! 


Ken Tompkins writes: 

> 
>> If I understand you correctly you are getting the option boot screen 
>> after selecting your boot option in yaboot? If you are getting the open 
>> firmware boot screen after selecting an option in yaboot, you may have a 
>> hardware issue. I would definatly suggest resetting open fireware and 
>> possibly running apple hardware tests. Unfortunatly apple hardware test 
>> does not always show you errors or failures that do no fail during the 
>> test, but you may get lucky. I have found that installing OSX or 
>> Yellowdog will sometimes bring forth hardware issues that have been there 
>> but may have seemed to be software problems. I hope this information is 
>> helpful to you.
>> Reset open fireware
>> Hold Apple - Option - O - F immediatly after turning the unit on.
>> At the prompt type reset-all and hit return.
>> The machine will reboot and you can try again.
> 
> I apologize for not being clearer and more precise. 
> 
> The only way I can get to the firewire drive is to boot with the Option 
> key pressed.
> This brings me into a GUI interface where all three of my drives are 
> represented by
> icons: (1) for the main drive; (2) for the data drive and (3) for YDL. 
> When
> I select the YDL to boot -- and then click on the arrow pointing right -- 
> I THEN get
> the black screen with the selections of L for Linux or C for the CD drive. 
> I expect
> that when I type "L" YDL will boot. 
> 
> Instead, when I type "L", I am taken back to the GUI screen -- only this 
> time the labels of the
> drives are black boxes -- and, while the cursor moves, nothing else can be 
> done. 
> 
> I tried the reset procedure sometime ago but it didn't fix it. 
> 
> At no time when I boot do I see the yaboot screen with the various boot 
> options. 
> 
> Noberto Quinanar pointed out that by installing YDL when the drive was 
> actually in
> the main machine and then moving the drive to a firewire enclosure has 
> changed
> the yaboot.conf file so that it no longer points at the drive. Because I 
> cannot boot
 

> into YDL as long as it is on the firewire, I will need to bring the drive 
> back into the
> machine and edit the conf file. I haven't done this yet. 
> 
> I hope this is clear about what is happening here. As I said, it ought not 
> to be
> this difficult. 
> 
> kt
> --  
> 
> 
> ===========================================
>                            Kenneth Tompkins
>                        Professor of Literature
>                  Richard Stockton College of NJ
>                                Homepage
> http://loki.stockton.edu/~ken/homepage/homepage.htm
>                    Deserted Medieval Village:
> http://loki.stockton.edu/~ken/wharram/wharram.htm
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