Desperate Help Needed! Problem Installing 4.0 OS on Sun 2

[Sean Schur]

I am having a really tough time. We just had several Sun 2/120's donated
to Calarts by Lucasfilm. They had set up their system in quite a site
specific configuration. We have entirely different needs for the Suns.
Essentially, we would like to start from the beginning and configure the
Suns from scratch. The 1/4" cartridge tapes we have are for SunOS 4.0,
however, I cannot get the kernal to come up.

I am trying to boot from Ram using MUnix, so I can format some hard disks.
Alternately, I would like to boot from the swap partition on a hard disk
that is already formatted, so I can run suninstall. I am able to copy the
"miniroot" from the tapes to the hard drive swap partition with no
problem. However, if I either try to boot from RAM for MUnix or boot from
the swap partition for the miniroot, I get the same error. The software
boots just fine through the inquiries about which devices and what
filesystems are to be used for root and swap. As soon as it asks the last
question the system crashes and reboots. The system crashes with a 

	"panic: address error"

message. There are a number of lines listing trap addresses and
tracebacks, and I could provide anyone with these numbers if necessary,
but I don't think it will help. I have tried swapping CPU cards, memory
cards, video cards, everything (Lucasfilm gave us lots of spares). No
matter what I do I get the same error. I think the problem lies with the
kernel coming up.

An associate of mine told me that he vaguely recalls a problem with
running 4.0 OS on Sun 2's when it originally came out. He said he also
vaguely recalls that it was a hardware problem and that there was a
hardware fix for it. He doesn't remember what it was or where he heard it
from, but he is pretty sure that is the problem. 

Which is why I am inquiring on the net. Does anyone out there remember
about this problem and the fix for it? Please, I am desperate. I have
worked on this problem for about a month now and am severely frustrated.

Any assistance would be GREATLY appreciated.

Thanks.

Sean Schur		    			USENET: schur at isi.edu	
Assistant Director Amiga/Media Lab		Compuserve: 70731,1102	
Character Animation Department			Plink: OSS259	
California Institute of the Arts