Subject: Re: YDL 2.1 & G3 B&W: Restoring yaboot parameters
From: Eric D. (liriodendron@mac.com)
Date: Sun Mar 17 2002 - 12:08:10 MST
keywords: yaboot, B&W G3, Blue and White, open firmware, lost boot ability
Hi Bob, I also have a B&W G3/450 (née B&W G3/350 Rev 2) with three
partitions (X 10.1.3, 9.2.2, YDL 2.1) on my 12 GB IDE drive and had the same
problem -- I lost the ability to boot into the yaboot boot menu. Here is a
copy-and-paste of hints and tips that I used to get my B&W to give me back
the ability to use the yaboot (even if I rarely run Linux it's awesome b/c I
can choose which OS to use on boot (X or 9 (or YDL on those days I feel like
procrastinating))).
My solution:
(1) boot into Open Firmware (cmd-opt-O-F)
(2) to boot a device temporarily type: "boot hd:#,ofboot.b" so in my case
that would be boot hd:9,yaboot since yaboot is on partition (?) with id 9
(3) to set boot partition permanently to id 9:
setenv boot_device hd:9,ofboot.b
No resetting of PRAM (in nearly 18 years of Mac use I cannot remember a PRAM
reset that fixed a problem permanently unless it was accompanied by a
brand-spanking new PRAM battery. PRAM problems are symptomatic of some other
problem. Resetting PRAM is like using a chainsaw to carve a 1" figurine, or
the lunacy involved in medicine/politicians treating symptoms & not problems
(there, that was my political rant for the day ;)), no pulling of batteries
or anything quite that frustrating required.
Eric.
on 28/2/02 9:08, Jonathan Singer at jsinger@genome.wi.mit.edu wrote:
> Eric D. wrote:
>> (6) If I set a Mac OS partition as a startup disk I lose the ability to boot
>> the Linux partition. How can I reset the Linux parition as a startup
>> partition (with yaboot... don't quite understand how that works but I
>> presume it's the boot loader).
>
> I have this too. (It has to do with "blessing" of partitions.) My fix is to
> boot into Open Firmware (cmd-opt-O-F) and do a 'boot hd:x,yaboot' where x is
> your root partition number. (Or is the boot partition number? I forget.) Run
> ybin as root once you've logged in.
From: Ben Stanley <bds02@uow.edu.au>
> Date: Tue, 05 Mar 2002 14:59:40 +1100
> Subject: Re: Open Firmware, "blessing" partitions & restarting
>
> The yaboot documentation says that the boot partition should not ever be
> mounted, especially by OS X, because it 'un-blesses' it.
>
> You should boot Linux off the CD (see the engineer's notes at the bottom
> of the Yellow Dog installation instruction page) and then re-run ybin to
> fix this.
>
> And, btw, I've had problems with the yaboot that comes with ydl 2.1. I
> recently upgraded to the more recent one in the yellow dog updates
> directory, and the problems went away. (One of my problems was with
> ext3, but I don't know what caused the other problems.)
>
> And as for mounting hfs partitions from Linux, I don't recommend that -
> the kernel hfs implementation has suffered bit-rot. Use hfsutils instead.
>
> Ben.
on 17/3/02 0:33, Bob Beaton at bob@keyengine.com wrote:
> Okay, I did a PRAM reset and completely lost the yaboot settings, My G3
> B&W (running SCSI, not ATA disks) would only boot into MacOS; no yaboot
> menu and no luck hitting the "L" key during the boot-up sequence. No
<snip>
> Well, I did everything explicitly suggested in the YDL-General list, as
> well as in Kai's HOW-TO.
> (http://www.yellowdoglinux.com/support/solutions/ydl_2.1/boot_functions.shtml)
> on the subject. I've heard so many 5-chime APPLE-OPT-P-R sequences that I'll
> be humming that damn tune for the next month! Oh well, one more Saturday
> afternoon directed toward gaining some experience...
<snip>
> (2) After trying everything documented and, even, undocumented, I did
> get my YDL SCSI-based G3 box restored. Here's how I did it (read the
> following with no promises about your config or anything else, rather,
> it is just a sequence of steps that worked for me on one particular
> machine):
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