well this thread has wandered and fragmented before I saw it. I have a Sun Ultra 5 running in my basement. It took me a little bit of work to keep it running. One problem with these platforms is that they have a battery powered NVRAM chip in them, that will give out after a several years. (Sort of like a PC's CMOS) If they die, the boot fails. Good news is that the replacement parts are available. Here's a FAQ http://www.squirrel.com/squirrel/sun-nvram-hostid.faq.html I got one from Digikey for about $20. A tip: I found if I left the system powered up for several days, that the NVRAM would charge up enough to boot ... sometimes. wrt: boot process - Scrounge around on the Sun website in the docs area, you need to find the detailed documentation on the boot process and commands. - There is a extended diagnostic mode that you can evoke with the right key combinations at power-up. - It will display running POST diagnostics while booting to the screen or a serial terminal. You can also get it to leave a failure code in the various lights on the keyboard. (get that keyboard hooked up!) You need the docs to decode the indication. Solaris 9 and Companion software CDs are availible from Sun for FREE on their website. There are also sunfreeware sites out there. Dave. On 1/31/2004 10:51 AM -0600, cctech-request(a)classiccmp.org wrote: