NVRAM Munged (was Re: SUMMARY: ELC won't boot)

From: Stephen Dowdy (stephen@medtronic.com)
Date: Mon Dec 16 1991 - 19:17:45 CST


Alain Brossard brought up 'resetting' the NVRAM by putting it in another
Running system.

You don't need to do this. Just do:
        1) Power off system
        2) Pull NVRAM (be careful to pull it gently)
        3) Power on system.
                System will Report NVRAM Checksum Failure (of course)
        4) System will give normal/forth monitor prompt.
        5) CAREFULLY insert the NVRAM into the socket. (in the correct
                orientation that you should have check in step 2)
        6) OK> set-defaults
        7) printenv
        8) manually reset options to how you want them...
        9) reset

You should be a happy camper at this point. SHOULD, but i have had to
perform this procedure more than once on a system, because something
didn't quite hold right.

Note, You are being danger-man here. If you are a safe player, call Sun,
wait for however long it takes... If you instead find it absolutely
ludicrous that you can render a machine useless via SOFTWARE commands
(Firmware) in this day and age, then have at it.

I wish Sun would clarify this situation. Do they just not want folks
doing the above procedure because they fear bent pins, shorted sockets,...?
Or is there some nastier problem that only shows up 1% of the time?

I personally find it very scary to know that a lab full of systems
could be rendered useless by someone who figures this out, and the
systems haven't been configured with passwords...

--stephen dowdy
Software Engineer
Micro-Rel, Inc. {A Division of Medtronic, Inc}
stephen@urel.medtronic.com {uunet!medtronic.com!urel!stephen}



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