The collected works of sornywrx

Hello guys. I just joined the forum and this is my first post. I have wanted an SGI for 15 years, always being intrigued by the design, the architecture, the power of these machines. I bought one back in 2004 or so, an Indy, but I never could get it to display video even with different 13w3 adapters. I ended up selling it breaking even.

I kept checking eBay for SGIs once a year or so, when I'd get "the fever" again. Was determined this time to get one and saw a Fuel on eBay that was bought as surplus. They had tons of pics but had no idea of what the CPU/memory/etc config was. Very thorough description and it shows the error stating that no disk was found so I know it powers on at least. Not hinv to show specs however. So I took a gamble, figured if I could get it cheap it'd be worth it but kept in mind that it might be the slowest CPU, little ram, and probably the V10 graphics. They said there was NO HD and "2 sticks" of memory so who knows.

I ended up getting it for $222. Which I thought was a pretty ok deal, but knowing I'll need to put a HD in, get IRIX installed, and hope nothing is wrong with it. There are other Fuels listed for $500-900 on there now so I'm hoping it was worth the gamble, but then again realize that eBay SGI prices are hugely inflated, especially the Buy It Now prices where someone might want $250 for an Indy with no HD and 'untested'

I'm hoping the SCSI HD I have works with the Fuel... It's a Seagate ST373405LW, which is a U160 10K drive with a 68pin D connector. That was part of my reasoning for buying the Fuel -- I already have a HD that works (I hope?).

Anyways, I'm ecstatic to find that there's an SGI community because there's not a ton of info online about these machines so I was afraid the community would be dead and there'd be no where to chat about SGIs, get help, and share resources.

Thanks!

The auction had some good pics but I'm very anxious to get this thing to my house so I can check it out in person, power it up, and get some more pics/info.

It did list the model number as CMN017, which I googled and kept showing results that all reported it was an R14K 600MHz so I'm not sure if CMN017 is a model number that always came with the 600MHz or if the google results are making it look that way. Either way, even if its low end I'm still excited and will be happy with the performance as I was originally looking at spending this much on an Indy or one of the slower O2s if I was lucky.

Edit: checked out the CMN017 model some more and apparently (I didn't know this) its not specific for a certain CPU. Saw lots of CMN017's listed that had the 500, 600, and 700MHz CPUs. So I guess it'll be a total mystery when I get it but that's ok

foetz wrote: welcome sornywrx
just fire it up and at the "title screen" hit 5. this sends you to the prom where you can run "hinv". the output should be a nice overview of what you have so you can see the specs of your machine already

Cool I didn't know that's how you got to where you can run hinv. I knew what hinv did but didn't know how to get there. Unfortunately the machine hasn't arrived yet. I bought it and paid yesterday and it's only 2 states away so I'm HOPING it shows up this week if they ship it soon.

I just couldn't wait to join the forum and also needed to research and see if my SCSI HD will work with the Fuel.

jan-jaap wrote:

sornywrx wrote: I just couldn't wait to join the forum and also needed to research and see if my SCSI HD will work with the Fuel.

I think that disk will work. But does the system come with the SCSI cable? The cable used in the Fuel has an unusual connector on the mainboard side.

I'm not 100% sure but I'm hopeful it does. The same looks to be there in the pics so unless they pulled it it should be there. I had read that the cable is odd and expensive so I'm hoping it's in there. I've got a regular ol' 68 pin SCSI cable from the server this drive came out of but it sounds like I better get one with the Fuel.

ClassicHasClass wrote: Welcome. I love the Indy for nostalgic reasons, but my "super Fuel" is the SGI I use the most, is more friendly to mainstream hardware and monitors, and definitely lends itself to upgrades. If it didn't have some residual value as a workstation, which as you noticed tends to drive prices up, it would be a great starter SGI.

I was really looking at Indys but since I came across this Fuel for a decent price, not much more than an Indy, I had to have it. To be honest I'm not going to be doing any kind of 3D modeling/rendering so using this as a UNIX workstation will be a fun experience.

I've been a Windows guy (professionally) for 15 years and am currently a Windows/VMware systems engineer who works with a bunch of UNIX admins so it'd be cool to learn some basics past what linux experience i have from playing on my Raspberry Pi.

Sure, here's the auction page:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/381354636898

I may be wrong but I'm thinking V10 graphics judging by the ports on the back. They list the serial number but I couldn't find anything that might exist that'd decode it and show stock specs, if even possible.

I was REALLY hoping this thing would have shipped by now so I could get it this week. Patience isn't one of my virtues, especially when I've bought something. The auction clearly states up to a 4 day handling period so I can't complain but I wish they had shipped it by now so I could get it by Friday (I'm in Tennessee, they're in Ohio). Was really hoping to get it in by the weekend so I'd have some time to play with it but I'm just glad I won the auction. I figured someone would outbid me at the last minute -- which they tried but I outbid them with 2 seconds left and won it at $222. Hope I didn't overpay.

Thanks for the welcome, haha, I think once it gets rolling it'll be here quick. It's just that this place is pretty slow to package and ship. Should be a 2 day trip via FedEx Ground if they'll ever get the thing out the door.

I've got a spot cleared on my desk ready to go!

I can use USB KB and mouse on the Fuel, right?

Trippynet wrote: Really hope they pack it well. It looks in very nice cosmetic condition. Even the front flap is intact!

I was very excited that they took such good pics and that it's in good cosmetic condition. I saw so many SGIs on eBay that were beat to hell and were missing doors or had broken plastic.

I read reviews before I even bid and their feedback record makes me optimistic that they're going to pack it well.

Oh I really hope they package it well. I hadn't even considered that but since SGIs are so heavy and are plastic clad I can now see why it's common for them to get busted up in shipping.

I was surprised that shipping was "only" $35 including "handling and packaging" with as heavy as these PCs are.

ajw99uk wrote: The description says it gets as far as looking for the boot drive from which to load sash, which shows that all the diagnostics must be passed. Sounds very promising that the lack of HD is the only reason why it's "parts or spares".

From the pics:
- internal SCSI cable is there
- you get a PCI-X dual-channel SCSI card as well (QLogic QLA12160 perhaps?)
- the DIMMs don't look fully "packed" with RAM ICs (compared to 1GB DIMMs) so I'd suspect 256MB each, but they might be 512MB
- good external condition, which hopefully means it's been generally looked after
- the label on the back is "copyright 2002", year of launch; of course that label may never have changed so (c)2002 might appear on all Fuels but if I'm right about the RAM I'd tend to assume an earlier rather than later model, so more likely to be 500 or 600MHz
- BUT the bolt that secures the drive cage to the cross-bar is missing! the horror! :-O

Shipping is always a gamble, but at least a Fuel's case is metal on 5 out of 6 faces. More plastic to get broken on an Octane or O2.

Enjoy!

Thanks for the in depth analysis! My mind's going crazy waiting on this thing so I can see what hardware is in it and what the condition is. Maybe I'm naive but I'm pretty trusting that, unless damaged in shipping, the only thing wrong is missing HD. I'd like to believe since this place is a reseller of surplus goods that it was just picked up off the floor of some business and was working until the drive was pulled for security reasons. Guess we'll see. Unfortunately it looks like it's gonna be the first of the week at best since I don't even have a tracking number yet.

hamei wrote:

sornywrx wrote: I can use USB KB and mouse on the Fuel, right?

Yes. But if you can, ps/2 is better. With usb, if you make any changes, you'll be single-usering in and deleting /etc/ioconfig.conf a lot. I even considered making a shutdown script that would do that every time it turned off, just in case.

Also, the USB versions of the SGI keyboards kinda suck. The letters wear off if you look at them crosswise. I have three here, all the same. Eventually I will become a touch typist

And the mouse is a piece-of-junk logitech. Logitech is pretty much garbage, wears out in two to three weeks. I've gone through three of their trackballs now. The old ball mouse is kind of a pain in the butt but it works ... and works ... and works.

And when you install ? (Next question is, "where can I get Irix ?") DON'T go to 30 immediately. I am so much happier with the Real Irix Experience and it runs soooo much better. The shit they did post-6.5.22 is awful.

In fact, it would be a bitch for a first-time install but if you can avoid a lot of the junk they bundled into the "keep standard" installation, it would be good. Netscape 4.8 is no longer relevant

If you are used to Windows, don't bother with any of the browsers, they'll just piss you off. Install rdesktop and run your fave Mickeysoft browser remotely. It will save you a lot of grief and a lot of worthless garbage on your nice clean Fuel. Keep the garbage on the MickeyMachine, where it belongs

Nekoware is great but ... if I were thee, I'd hold off any installing any until you've used real Irix apps a while. Otherwise you may as well get a peecee and stick Loonix on it. So many posts here asking "where can I get a fossy xyz ?" to which the correct answer is, "Icon Catalog -> Media Tools". Irix comes with a ton of built-in goodies. For 95% of what you do, you don't need gnulix crap.

Wow thanks for all the info. I might be looking for a PS2 kb/mouse set then. I just found a nice set on eBay for $50 and looks like they're in very good condition:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/SGI-Silicon-Gra ... 35ef1b524f

Can't tell if that's a Logitech mouse though but on some other SGI mouse I've seen the Logitech logo and this one doesn't show it. I've had past experience of Logitech being junk and wouldn't buy one just because it had the SGI logo on it.

And who doesn't use Netscape 4.8 anymore??

Super excited, apparently the Fuel shipped early in the week but the seller was just slow to post the tracking number. I got the number this morning, finally, and it shows that its out for delivery. My wife just called and said a "HUGE BOX" showed up and she barely was able to drag it inside. I'll get some pics of this thing and a hinv tonight and update!

Haha,

I was so excited I rushed home and opened this thing up. It's in even better shape than the pics showed on eBay! Not 100%, there's a scuff or two but nothing broken and looks beautiful!

I fired it up and got this hinv -v (I should've gotten text but just snapped a quick pic):


Looks like 600MHz and 1GB RAM, not too shabby. Not sure what graphics board that is, I assume it's a V10 but don't know.

I'll get some good pics of the system itself tomorrow. I spent all my time getting my SCSI drive in and was very relieved that the system booted and detected the Seagate SCSI drive I installed!

I was up kind of late last night working to install IRIX. I had 6.5.22 ISOs that I burned (from linux with cdwrite). Started with Overlay CD 1 and was able to boot into sash and then partition the drive but when I got back to the menu to boot the installer and get to the inst> promopt I, instead, got an error.

Should I start a new thread about that? I've searched for it (somewhat) and haven't found an answer yet.

hamei wrote:

sornywrx wrote: Started with Overlay CD 1 ...

Houston, I think we have a problem.

You didn't by any chance download these from SGI ? 'Cuz those aren't the operating system. Those are overlays to the operating system. Fixpacks. Updates. Will not do what you want.

Nope, didn't download them from SGI.

I have a set that has Overlay 1-3 6.5.22, Foundation 6.5, and IRIX 6.5.22 Applications.


To be specific on what I did, I started by running boot -f dksc(1,6,8)sash64 and then when I get to the sash prompt I ran boot -f dksc(1,6,7)stand/fx.64 --x and then selected defaults for device name, ctrl#, and drive# (dksc, 0, and 1). It reported drive selftest OK and shows my SEAGATE drive. Then I did repartition, root, label, and sync then exited and tried to "Install System Software" and that's when I got the error. The "Install System Software" option does report that it's copying the tools and takes about 20-30 seconds as it reads the CD-ROM. Then it fails with this error:

== see attachment ==

Any ideas? I burned the CD again to make sure I didn't have a bad write (could be a bad ISO I guess but I checked the checksums).

The error mentions controller 0, disk 1 and that's what the partition program shows so it seems to be pointing to the correct thing. Also, when I ran boot -f I replaced dksc(1,6,x) with cdrom(1,6,x) and both worked (as far as loading the partitioning tool but both ways gives me the same error in the screenshot above.

I'm running a disk exercise now to test it, figured it couldn't hurt.

I'm sure it's something minor, like a the tools are looking in the wrong place for the drive or something, but I've never ever installed IRIX or worked with an SGI so I'm not familiar with the process... I assumed I partitioned the drive and now the tools were supposed to be loaded into memory and then ran so that I could format the drive and continue installation.

I did pull the SCSI card out and tried again, same thing... but i was thinking the same thing you just said that controller 0 should be the internal (assumed so anyways).

It's in the middle of a disk exercise now and is going pretty slow (might take another hour or two) but after that I'll try checking the label again as I haven't tried that.

Also, if it helps, after I partition and try to run the installer, if I go back and run boot -f it gives me a message a miniroot install is misconfigured or previous installation failed. Gives me options to 'c' continue, 'f' to fix the miniroot install state and try again, or 'a' abort and return to menu.

I've tried them all and never got anywhere. If I do a 'fix' it tells me that miniroot install state reset to normal. This is the part where my troubleshooting skills are weak as I'm not sure what the miniroot is or what it's trying to do so I can't really get my head in there and figure it out. I've worked in IT 15 years and am now a Systems Engineer but it's all Windows and VMware stuff with a little linux, so I have the IT and troubleshooting background but am lost on this.

Here's my printenv after a reset (should've taken a pic before but didn't)

== see attachment ==

I'm assuming the System and OSLoad partition entries are correct.

What seems to be failing here? When I partitioned the drive and then tried to boot the installer is it loading files to the HD and then trying to boot it (and failing)? Guess I"m just lost on the boot process as I'm used to standard x86 PCs with BIOS.

I did an 'ls' from the command line and it shows :
dksc(0,1,8)/:
sgilabel

Is that right? 'sgilabel' is what the partitioning tool showed as the drive label after I let it setup the default root partition.

Thanks for the help, btw guys. If I need to start a new thread at this point just let me know.

foetz wrote:

sornywrx wrote: When I partitioned the drive

how did you do that?

Is that not what fx does? Sorry, I thought that fx was a disk partitioning tool. As I understood it I was to run fx (which seems to run ok) then run the installation tools off the CD and format the drive and finish the install.

Also, I just saw your edit for the image size. I apologize and will resize them next time.

foetz wrote:

sornywrx wrote: Is that not what fx does?

oh yes it is but i wanted to know what you did in fx i.e. how you partitioned the disk exactly

Ah, ok, yes I looked at a few guides and they all had the same procedure which was:

Press enter for disk defaults (controller 0, drive 1), it found my Seagate drive ok. I then did the following:

-'r' for repartition
-'ro' for root drive option
-confirmed XFS
-'..' to go up a level
-'l' for new disk label
-'sy' for new disk label (which was confirmed with a message)
-'ex' for exit... I believe here it asked if I wanted to save changes to the disk, I typed y

Then it rebooted. And with the same CD in the drive I tried to continue the installation and after reading the tools portion of the CD for 20-30 sec that's when I got the error message in the screen shot about being unable to read /hw etc etc.


I did as little reading. Read about the process and how after partitioning the option to start the install copies the 'miniroot' to a partition (#1) on the HD then boots it.

So I go to the cmd line and loaded sash64 and typed 'ls' on a fresh disk partition, BEFORE running the install. It only showed 1 partition, dksc(0,1,8) which is 'sgilabel'

After I attempted the install and it copies the tools from the CD (and then fails to give me the inst> prompt where I'd run mkfs) I went back to the prompt and run ls. This time it shows the dksc(0,1,8) with 'sgilabel' AND dksc(0,1,1) with some files and folders.
.cshrc .login .profile bin dev etc hw lib lib32 sbin usr var

I did an 'dksc(0,1,1)/hw' and it shows that it's an empty drive. So I don't know if this is the same 'hw' referenced in the error in my earlier screenshot or if it's supposed to be empty.

Ah, I ran dksc(0,1,1)/bin just to see what it'd have an I got "xfs: file read error" and "read of inode failed" "inode 0 has invalid magic number 0x5846' and could not read file ..U(A" ---except the ..U(A part of the 'file' name was the u with an ^ on top and an A with a ` on top.... obviously not real files and showing file corruption Not sure if it's the HD or the media.

So it looks like its at least seeing the drive, setting up partitions, and attempting to copy the tools but then fails to load the miniroot.

Either way I'm already learning a lot about IRIX

foetz wrote:

sornywrx wrote: Press enter for disk defaults (controller 0, drive 1), it found my Seagate drive ok. I then did the following:

-'r' for repartition
-'ro' for root drive option
-confirmed XFS
-'..' to go up a level
-'l' for new disk label
-'sy' for new disk label (which was confirmed with a message)
-'ex' for exit... I believe here it asked if I wanted to save changes to the disk, I typed y

yeah that's correct but you still have to format it after. partitioning does not include creating a filesystem which goes for pretty much any os.

after booting the cd go to the admin menu and escape to a shell. in there run "mount" to see the full path of your root partition. then try:

Code: Select all

umount root_partition_path_here
mkfs /hw/rdisk/dks0d1s0
mount /hw/disk/dks0d1s0 root_partition_path_here


after that leave the shell (ctrl+d), return to the main menu and proceed with the installation

Thanks for the info but I'm a little lost... When you say 'booting the cd' are you talking about running boot -f dksc(1,6,8)sash64? Because when at the admin menu (the one with "Start System, Install System Software, Run Diagnostics, Recover System, Enter Command Monitor, Select KB Layout) I choose Enter Command Monitor and tried running the boot -f command on the CD and get the sash prompt. From there I tried to run mount, umount, mkfs and got errors about it being unknown.

I understand that the drive needs to be formatted after partitioning but all of the guides I've read on IRIX installation say to partition it with fx, then click "Install System Software" and then you're able to use mkfs to format once you get the miniroot prompt. I think my breakdown is occurring when the miniroot isn't installing properly so I don't get the opportunity to get a shell but maybe I misunderstood your directions.

foetz wrote:

sornywrx wrote: I think my breakdown is occurring when the miniroot isn't installing properly so I don't get the opportunity to get a shell but maybe I misunderstood your directions.

oh so you never even got to inst?
btw which of the irix cds did you use?

That's correct, didn't even get to inst> prompt. Right before it should've loaded, after the CD is read and the tools are copied to the HD, it fails with that error message.

What's interesting is that after it copies the tools from the CD to the partition I can go to the command line (from the main menu) and type ls dksc(0,1,1) and it lists some files and folders. But *some* of the folders have files listed that look like the file names are corrupted. Such as "__ÀÙÙ" and the times I"ve seen that on other file systems is when files are corrupted. Not all of them are like this... I saw some files in the folders on dksc(0,1,1) as regular looking file names, but some were definitely corrupted.

I am thinking that when the CD tools are being copied to the 0,1,1 partition for miniroot somethings getting corrupted and that's why it's failing. If that's the case then I'm probably in a world of hurt as it could be lots of reasons why it's corrupting the data... CD-ROM drive, HD, controller issues, memory....

Are there any kind of diagnostics I can run without having IRIX installed? I've got fx doing a disk exercise now to check for problems and it's been running about 8 hours and is almost finished.

Also, forgot to mention this, my CDs are 6.5.22 Overlays 1/2/3 and I have 6.5 Foundations 1/2. I've burned a few copies of the Installation Tools CD (Overlay CD1 apparently) to make sure it wasn't a bad burn or something.

It sounds like you have the luck I have.... I always run into the weirdest most unusual problems. I should've known that there's no way IRIX would've installed perfectly, by the boot. On the positive side I've already learned a LOT more than I knew before about IRIX and SGI

Good call on the low level format... I was going to do it from the fx tool on the IRIX CD but wasn't sure if I should. This drive wasn't brand new and was used in a Windows system for a while. I do have a SCSI controller somewhere that I can throw in a desktop and low level format this drive.

I wish I had spare memory, CD-ROM, and HD but I don't have any SCSI stuff laying around anymore except this one drive, so I can't test by swapping hardware. The Fuel DOES have that 2nd SCSI card in it so I might try putting the HD on that other card to rule out the onboard SCSI as having issues but I'd think the onboard SCSI would be the least likely problem.

foetz wrote: just to rule that one out since you didn't answer it: you have to boot with the first cd of 6.5.22 or 6.5.30. using the foundation's "boot" cd will not work on a fuel.

Yup, confirmed. I had tried to boot with Foundation 1 (just to test) and it wouldn't boot anyways.

I was using what was labeled as Overlay CD1. The same CD that let me boot it and run fx (so fx is on there) and when I try to load the installation tools to the HD partition (right before booting inst> prompt) it reads that CD and copies data. So I'm pretty sure it's the correct CD. I stuck the foundation CD1 in there and tried to do the "Install System Software" where it copies the tools and it reported that it was the wrong CD and wouldn't even try to copy it.

Yes I really don't trust these ISOs. I'd gladly buy the original media if there was an option besides eBay where people are asking more than what I paid for the Fuel for the CDs.

duck wrote:

sornywrx wrote: The error mentions controller 0, disk 1 and that's what the partition program shows so it seems to be pointing to the correct thing. Also, when I ran boot -f I replaced dksc(1,6,x) with cdrom(1,6,x) and both worked (as far as loading the partitioning tool but both ways gives me the same error in the screenshot above.

Did you try to run the installer again after resetenv? It looks to me like it's got some weird path set in the prom (you can think of /hw like /proc on linux, it's a virtual file tree of all the installed devices, but only available in a running system, it would make zero sense in the prom) where it would expect a dksc-style disk id.

Sure did. Reset it and tried again (twice actually).. no dice.

I was just reading about using debian as a sftp server for the media... thought about spinning up a Debian VM and mounting my ISOs there and ruling out the CD-ROM drive. The files on the miniroot partition, after being copied by the CD, look to be corrupted and unreadable so I'm thinking it's something happening in the data transfer portion. :/

JohnK wrote: I had a weird issue with my Fuel though it was somewhat different. I could not install miniroot to the disk once I booted it up from the Installation and Tools Overlay CD. It just kept failing even though the drive tested ok. Drove me nuts until I pinpointed that the problem was either the onboard HBA or the SCSI cable which I tried to re-seat many times over. I even tried a different active terminator on the cable thinking that's what it was but it wasn't. So I purchased another cable (thanks Doug) and that turned out to be the fix. I can only count on one hand the number of bad internal ribbon cables (IDE, SCSI, etc.) that I had come across over the years. I had good reason to suspect it though. The cable that came with the machine looked like it had been crumbled up a few times with creases all over it in every direction. Not good especially for SCSI.

That sounds like my problem and I was afraid it was something oddball like the cable or controller. Luckily I have that PCI SCSI card installed so I can at least rule out the onboard HBA but can't rule out the cable. I'll take a look at the cable this evening and see if there's anything obviously wrong with it. I wish I had another drive handy to test so I could rule it out. I may try a low level format on it tonight to see if it comes out ok.

duck wrote:

sornywrx wrote:

duck wrote: Did you try to run the installer again after resetenv? It looks to me like it's got some weird path set in the prom (you can think of /hw like /proc on linux, it's a virtual file tree of all the installed devices, but only available in a running system, it would make zero sense in the prom) where it would expect a dksc-style disk id.

Sure did. Reset it and tried again (twice actually).. no dice.

I was just reading about using debian as a sftp server for the media... thought about spinning up a Debian VM and mounting my ISOs there and ruling out the CD-ROM drive. The files on the miniroot partition, after being copied by the CD, look to be corrupted and unreadable so I'm thinking it's something happening in the data transfer portion. :/

Bummer. It's been so long since I twiddled in the prom that I can't remember half of it anymore... I had a search around and this looks interesting: viewtopic.php?t=15702

Seems like the "Unknown device" can happen for many reasons... if you are able, maybe try to replace the disk? There's also the old nugget "reseat everything".

Fx also has the 'auto' command when launched in expert mode (-x) which will automatically exercise the disk to find bad blocks, map them out and create a standard label. Might be worth trying in case there happened to be bad blocks in just the wrong place.

I had read that the disk could be the problem. Replacing the disk may be the next purchase as these SCSI disks (as long as they aren't labeled as SGI) aren't that expensive since I don't need anything bigger than a 36 or 73GB.

I actually launched fx in 'auto' mode last night around midnight so that it could exercise the disk and find bad blocks and all that. As of this morning when I left for work it was still running so I'll have to see how it turned out this evening. Figured it couldn't hurt since I wouldn't be home to work on the machine anyways.

duck wrote:

sornywrx wrote: I had read that the disk could be the problem. Replacing the disk may be the next purchase as these SCSI disks (as long as they aren't labeled as SGI) aren't that expensive since I don't need anything bigger than a 36 or 73GB.

I actually launched fx in 'auto' mode last night around midnight so that it could exercise the disk and find bad blocks and all that. As of this morning when I left for work it was still running so I'll have to see how it turned out this evening. Figured it couldn't hurt since I wouldn't be home to work on the machine anyways.

It seems like you have anticipated my every move, good job

I've worked in IT long enough (and most of that was onsite support/troubleshooting) so although this is an SGI with an OS I'd never even used before the installation seemed to be one of those oddball things that I had seen before on PCs... files being corrupted while trying to install OS. And then it's either bad drive, cable, controller, memory, motherboard.... well.. pretty much anything but I usually start with disk first as it's most likely bad. Bad media will usually give a media read error and not write jibberish corrupted files to the drive.

Also, once when I was doing an ls on the drive, after it supposedly copied the miniroot to it (which failed) I remember seeing an error that stated something like "cannot read file system" when trying to access certain folders on dksc(0,1,1) and some of the files themselves were just odd characters, not real filenames.

Well sure enough my cable has been pinched. I pulled the cable out after reseating the RAM and saw that right after the first connector (after motherboard) the 2 wires on the edge have been pinched and were exposed copper. Not cut but I know this isn't good for SCSI.

I did have the HD plugged in further down the cable, like the 5th or 6th connector on the SCSI cable. After seeing the cut I moved it to the first connector, the only one BEFORE the pinched portion. I'm not sure if this will help or not as I can't remember with SCSI how the data passes on the cable.

Either way, after moving the hard drive to connector #1 I just successfully got the miniroot created! I just ran mkfs and am now dropped to the Inst> prompt!

So it was the cable all along I guess.

foetz wrote:

ClassicHasClass wrote: Sometimes it's the simple things, isn't it?

indeed, and sometimes it's not

good to hear you got it sorted sornywrx

I'm so glad it's just the cable. I figured I'd be chasing this thing down for a weeks, spending money on guesses like HD, cable, SCSI card, motherboard, etc etc and end up having $250 more in this Fuel.

I didn't finish the install last night. I was just so happy to see the Inst> prompt that I just left it at that. Didn't read up past drive partitioning and formatting so I need to regroup and read up on the actual install and finish it up tonight.

I took some pics of the Fuel but they came out really saturated and you can't appreciate how nice the physical condition is so I'm going to try again. I also ordered that SGI PS2 mouse/KB set I posted a few pages ago. Made an offer and got them for $37.50... figured that wasn't too bad as they looked to be in excellent condition and it wasn't a Logitech mouse.

Thanks for all the help and suggestions guys. I was hesitant to buy an SGI because I figured all the communities and forums had died out and I'd be alone if there was problems. Glad to see this site is still populated and full of helpful people.

Since mine took a while to power up and boot I was thinking it was DOA and I was starting to get mad. I was used to seeing a quicker response so I was like "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOo.....oooh, ok cool...."