Boot problem for Ultra 60 running Solaris 9

Question

I have a Sun Ultra 60 which, until the beginning of this month, was running Solaris 9 just fine. Following an emergency stop, the system refused to boot. At the ok prompt the boot command drew the response
Boot device: /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/disk@0,0 file and args:
after which the system would hang, responding only to a mechanical power-off. The command boot -F failsafe gives the response
Boot device: /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/disk@0,0 file and args -F failsafe
Boot load failed
The file just loaded does not appear to be executable
after which the system returns the ok prompt without hanging, but without booting either. All OpenBoot (v. 3.23) test and diagnostic commands return normal responses.
Raising the diag-level to max, changing the diag-device to disk, and setting diag-switch? to true gets the same responses, with the following additional information:
Boot device: /pci@1f,4000/scsi@3/disk0,0 File and args -F failsafe
Loading ufs-file-system package 1.4. 04 Aug 1995 13:02:54
FCode UFS Reader 1.12 00/07/17 15:48:16
Loading: /platform/SUNW, Ultra-60/failsafe
Loading: /platform/sun4u/failsafe
Boot load failed
The file just loaded does not appear to be executable
after which the system returns the ok prompt without booting.
Some fixes which do not work: I tried booting from CD, either the Solaris 9 software CDs or the Solaris 8 software CDs (obtained directly from Sun); these yield
Redirected to slice: 1
Loading: /platform/SUNW, Ultra-60/ufsboot
Loading: /platform/sun4u/ufsboot
after which the system hangs (only mechanical shutoff works), or if the flag -F failsafe is used, the failsafe file is loaded, ``the file just loaded does not appear to be executable,'' and the system returns the ok prompt. I also tried making a bootable floppy disk by installing a bootblock, the ufsboot executable, and the kernel/unix executable from a working SunBlade 150 onto a floppy. The command boot floppy works as above, and can be forced to load the ufsboot file from the floppy, but ``the file just loaded does not appear to be executable''; the system returns the ok prompt without booting, but at least without hanging.
Presumably this is a bootblock problem, or an OpenBoot problem. But how can I restore a system (restore what?) which will not boot in the first place? Any advice is much appreciated.

Answer 1

Some additional information which may (or may not) shed light on this problem: If the system hangs with diag-switch? set to true, then powering off and back on becomes rather difficult. The power-on led on the front panel may flash for several minutes, with no display on the monitor. If there is no CD in the cdrom drive and no floppy in the floppy drive, the led goes off (the system is on--I can hear the hard drives spinning) for about a minute, after which the test lights on the SCSI peripherals light up, and the monitor comes on. It shows a long series of ``Probing ... '' lines which look normal, followed by the usual banner, followed by ``Resetting memory at ...,'' which runs through a series of addresses. This is followed by ``Power On Self Test Failed Cause: SIMM U0701,'' then the usual ok prompt. Then all the OpenBoot commands except boot appear to operate normally. So--
1) Is this a hardware failure of one of the system's DIMM memory cards? Would that, in itself, account for the failure to boot, both from disk and from CD?
2) If so, and replacing this card would solve the problem, is the required DIMM a generic item or a component specific to the Ultra 60?
Any advice is much appreciated.