  Problems upgrading Alpha firmware? 
 The Question is:
 
I have two questions... But the more important comes now. :-)
 
I have a DEC3000/800 ALPHA that's currently running in a mixed VAX/ALPHA
cluster running 3 different versions of VMS for various reasons (like 5.5-2
for multinet on old mailserver box running on a VAXSERVER 3300, etc). The
3000 is currently running VMS 6.
2 ALPHA and I want to upgrade it to the 7.1-2 I'm running on a Alpha2100
4/200.
 
I don't have a clue what version of firmware the 3000 is running, and I know
the OS upgrade will probably require a firmware upgrade to at least 5.3 as
it did when I upgraded the 2100. Main problem is that I cannot get either
the 5.4 Firmware upgrade or t
he 7.1-2 OS upgrade to boot from the SCSI CD-ROM installed on the box. The
CD-ROM reads fine when mounted, but when the command
 
&gt;&gt;&gt; b dka400 -flags 0,0
 
is issued, an error (ok I didn't write it down exactly) that reads SCSI
check media/device and then an 84 error (???) after it does the init, then
goes back to the chevrons. I checked the show command and the scsi_reset is
set to 4 as is mentioned in the
book to allow time for the scsi devices to "come back" after the reset. The
&gt;&gt;&gt; SHOW DEV reports all the drives there sometimes/sometimes not, but most
times the CD-ROM shows up fine as an RRD43, and like I said I have the init
turned on as it boots, so i
t should see the CD-ROM properly.
 
Any way to get this thing to boot from the dang CD?
 
Thanks!!!!!
 
 
 
 The Answer is:
 
  Other options include DECnet MOP and floppy disk-based firmware upgrades.
 
    ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/Alpha/firmware/index.html
    ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/utilities/mkboot.txt
    ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/utilities/mkbootarc.txt
    ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/DEC/Alpha/firmware/utilities/mkntboot.txt
 
  The OpenVMS Wizard will assume the CD-ROM device is actually an RRD43,
  and not some other CD-ROM drive.  (If the CD-ROM drive is not actually
  an RRD43 device, and as a general test (eg: potentially non-functional)
  for the RRD43, please acquire another RRD-series CD-ROM drive and try
  the bootstrap again.)
 
  You will want to acquire the exact error message.
 
  If the current firmware is sufficiently old, you might need to upgrade
  in steps.
 
  Please contact your hardware support organization, or the Compaq Customer
  Support Center for assistance.
 
