When trying to reinstall solaris 8 on a used ultra 5, I get an ethernet message that doen't allow me to reinstall solaris. I boot from cdrom( with disk 1 of the set) and I get the option of language and location. After this, I go into openWindows and get 2 windows on the screen. One is a solaris install console box that keeps trying to dial up some ethernet address(because it previously booted from the net) and the other is the install box. A few of the boxes don't accept my input because at the end it , when I get the option to change the options, they are wrong. It always sets it up as a networked system with NIS. I never get to reinstall because of this error. In the console box there is a message saying "in.rdsk" and it keeps showing this message: SUNW,hme:No response from ethernet nerwork: Link down-cable problem Then it says: "Starting remote procedure call (RPC) services: sysidnsSUNW,hme0:No response, blah , blah, blah" I want to reinstall solaris because the system is new to me, but used and configured very weird, I have no passwords. Does anyone have any ideas? Thanks!

Hrm, long shot but first did you do boot cdrom -install ? (I assume you did) Also, if you can boot -s on the cdrom and remove /etc/defaultdomain ? Maybe somehow the install routine is looking at these files. Another one - check in your prom settings.... (STOP+A and type printenv) to see what boot-device is set to? I'm not 100% sure if this would have any bearing on the install process but... it should be set to disk. if it's set to net, then do setenv boot-device disk from the ok prompt, then reset from the ok prompt and see if this helps :) Sorry if this doesn't make sense - it's 04:40am and I'm at work and tired....!

Mark, When I do a boot cdrom -install it prompts me for a command line or file name and I have no clue what to do with that. The: remove /etc/defaultdomain from the # prompt isn't recognized. The setenv is set to disk. Thanks for trying!

You have to use >boot cdrom - install ( space between - and install matters) Also please check display while doing the above command to verify that the device id is the same as cdrom id. some thing like this iommu/sbus/espdma@4,8400000/esp@4,8800000/sd@6,0:d Good luck Jay

first sent the env to boot from the cdrom, that way u will have access to complete the installation else u could do a stop+A then u command boot cdrom this too will solve the problem. u should be fine after that .