I got a Sparc 5 station in a computer give away, my only problem is: I don't have a login and password to access it. I have tried to install Solaris 8 on it, but it won't boot from the cdrom and there is nothing I can do, for I don't have access to it. Does anyone know how can I "reset" my station in order to gain access to it? Any recommendations?

What do you mean it won't boot from the CDROM? do you get an error message? Did you power on, do STOP + A and then type boot cdrom ? or were you just leaving the cd in the drive? I'd recommend installing from scratch anyhow, that way you can customise it to how you want it, plus it's a nice memory refresher/learning process setting everything up.

power up the workstation and immediatelly stop it pressing STOP and A button. insert OS cdrom in the drive and then boot typing "boot cdrom" at the OK prompt. proceed until the Xserver starts an then when the graphic installation process starts right click in the background. open a terminal (shell) and from it mount the root partition of the boot disk. This should be /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 under the mountpoint /a the command is: # mount /dev/dsk/c0t3d0s0 /a mow you can edit /a/etc/shadow vith vi and delete the crypted password for user root. Save the file and then reboot from the hard disk. Loging as root sholdn't need any password nao. mail me if you need more adds. bay.

I had a similiar problem with my computer, but I can't even get the thing toboot from my 411 CD-ROM. what are some reasons that it won't boot? Mark B

since you don't know the history on the machine. You might want to run the command from th OK prompt. This command will reconfigure the devices that are on you sparc5. If for some reason someone just put the cdrom in the sparc5 prior to you getting it, and they didn't run this command then the machine will not reconise the cdrom. after doing the following. you should be able to type and the installation process should start.

how can i install Windows NT on a Sparc 20? i have two of the fine machines here