Can't boot from CD to username / password prompt

[Neil]

Hi,

First off I'm really excited about using EON ZFS NAS. I can't wait to get going with it.

I've just burnt the latest version of the EON ZFS NAS CD: eon-0.600-130-64-cifs.iso

however i don't seem to boot from the CD far enough to get the username prompt.

I get the grub boot selection screen, then on selecting the EON 64bit top option, I see the dots progress across the screen. Then I see the standard 3 lines of text:

SunOS Release 5.11 ........
Copyright 1983-2009 .......
Use is subject to ........

but then all I get is a flashing underscore character. I've left it for a good 30 minutes and when I come back I see exactly the same flashing underscore character.

Although I don't have the exact details to hand, I'm using a standard Intel server motherboard with two single core (with hyperthreading) Xeon CPUs installed into it with 3GB or RAM. There are two sata hard drives installed in the machine itself and there are 4 more IDE drives attached via a QLogic 2GB Fibre Channel card.

Are their and verbose or debug options i can pass to the kernel in grub to get any details about where the problem is, or during the boot is it possible to switch to the boot text screen to see what is going on?

Thanks

Neil

[Jürgen Keil]

Post by Neil
SunOS Release 5.11 ........
Copyright 1983-2009 .......
Use is subject to ........
but then all I get is a flashing underscore
character. I've left it for a good 30 minutes and
when I come back I see exactly the same flashing
underscore character.
Although I don't have the exact details to hand, I'm
using a standard Intel server motherboard with two
single core (with hyperthreading) Xeon CPUs installed
into it with 3GB or RAM.

The exact hardware details would be interesting.


Wild guess: Is this perhaps an Intel DQ45EK motherboard
with Intel Q45 chipset?

http://opensolaris.org/jive/thread.jspa?threadID=100709

Post by Neil
Are their and verbose or debug options i can pass to
the kernel in grub to get any details about where the
problem is...

Yes; boot the kernel with option "-v"

[Neil]

Hi,

jkeil, thanks for the help. It turns out that I'm using an Intel Server Board SE7520JR2

The chipset is E7520. This URL has more details about it: http://www.intel.com/cd/channel/reseller/apac/eng/products/server/boards/dp/se7520jr2/feature/index.htm

I've got a bit further (well same hang point, but boot text displayed). If i edit the top grub entry, add " -v" to the end and then boot from that line I then get the boot text up on the screen after the dots finish.

it appears to hang at:

8042 device: ***@1, mouse8042 # 0
mouse80420 is /***@0,0/***@1f/***@1,60/***@1

The keyboard detected before that (seems to give the same values) and before that it detected the PCI Express device.

Any help would be gratefully received as a bit of a Solaris / OpenSolaris newbie. :(

Kind Regards

Neil

[Neil]

Hi,

I've just tried booting with kernel options "-v -k -a -m verbose" and it gets as far as asking the following:

Name of system file [/etc/system]: <flashing cursor>

However the keyboard does nothing at all. Doesn't type keys and return also does nothing. I'm using a PS2 keyboard and mouse and onboard graphics and network adapters.

Neil

[Neil]

Ok, more details. When I boot with kernel option " -v" although it appears to hang after the "mouse80420..." line, it actually access the CD two times.

The first time it seems to take 15-30 seconds reading the CD and the second time perhaps only 5-15 seconds.

During this time, no further information is displayed on the screen.

Neil

[Jürgen Keil]

Post by Neil
Ok, more details. When I boot with kernel option "
-v" although it appears to hang after the
"mouse80420..." line, it actually access the CD two
times.
The first time it seems to take 15-30 seconds reading
the CD and the second time perhaps only 5-15 seconds.
During this time, no further information is displayed
on the screen.

It is possible that OpenSolaris has a problem finding the
VGA console device, and as a result falls back to use the
serial port as console device (for console output and input).

In the verbose kernel messages, did it report that the
"vgatext", "i915" or "nvidia" driver have detected
(video) hardware?


Does that system have a serial port (maybe as connector / header
on the mainboard)? Is the console redirected to the serial port?

[Jürgen Keil]

Post by Neil
I've just tried booting with kernel options "-v -k -a
-m verbose" and it gets as far as asking the
Name of system file [/etc/system]: <flashing cursor>
However the keyboard does nothing at all. Doesn't
type keys and return also does nothing. I'm using a
PS2 keyboard and mouse

Are there BIOS setup options available for legacy
keyboard emulation? Would it help to disable such
an option?

Do you have an USB keyboard and USB mouse available
that you could test (instead of the PS/2 keyboard/mouse)?