I Installation Error Messages

This appendix explains the error messages you might see if there is a problem during an installation. The messages are sorted in alphabetical order.

<dev>: unknown device: The installation procedure detected that the distribution media to install from is not a supported installation device. Installation devices include Remote Installation Services (RIS) servers or rz* (SCSI) disks and CD-ROMs.
<string>: unknown machine type: The program used to determine the type of machine being installed has not found the expected Alpha architecture. The value of string is the value returned from the program. The system installation cannot continue and you must contact your field service representative.
A previous installation has left the system in a state that will not allow a restart. Please halt and then reboot to install this system.: This message may be displayed when restart is entered from the UNIX Shell. This message means that the installation has determined that a restart is not possible due to the current state of the system. You must first halt the system by entering the halt command and then reboot the system from the distribution media to start the installation procedure again.
Cannot find <CLIENT> in risdb file. Check with the system manager of your RIS server.: This message displays during a RIS installation. The name assigned to this system (CLIENT) during the installation does not have an entry in the risdb file on the RIS server. When this occurs, the problem is usually related to the use of a fully qualified hostname versus a non-fully qualified hostname, for example, abcxyz.com instead of abcxyz. This error is often caused by the particular name service configured on the network and can usually be resolved by modifying the entry in the risdb file so that it matches CLIENT.
Cannot find the name for $CLIENT using bin/getname. Check with the system manager of your RIS server.: During a RIS installation, the RIS server was unable to inform the client of its host name. The system being installed requests that the RIS server send its host name based on the IP address. The RIS server does this by executing the ~ris/bin/getname command. The error occurs when the getname command could not return the host name. Generally, this is due to a problem with the particular name service configured on the network. This can often be resolved by adding an entry to the /etc/hosts file (on the RIS server) for the system being installed.
Could not successfully write 'showboot' file. When the system halts, please enter your default boot disk as follows: >>> set BOOTDEF_DEV <boot_default>: This message indicates that the installation process could not successfully ascertain the default boot information from the console firmware and suggests that the console firmware variable BOOTDEF_DEV be set to the name of the disk that contains the newly-installed root file system. After setting this variable, reboot the system by issuing the boot command.
Error copying MAKEDEV to /mnt.: This message is displayed when of the installation process fails to copy the MAKEDEV script from the memory file system (/dev) to the dev directory on the newly created root file system which is currently mounted on /mnt (/mnt/dev). This is a fatal error for the installation. Invoke the installation again. If it fails, contact your Digital field service representative.
If the X server was started as part of the installation and repeated attempts to restart the installation fail, enter: restart nogui: This message may be seen if the graphical user interface encountered an error or if you intentionally selected the UNIX Shell option. If an error occurred before the installation graphical user interface was started, there may be a problem starting the X environment for the installation. In this case, you can invoke the installation procedure with the text-based interface by entering the restart nogui command.
No valid device is found. Contact a DIGITAL field service representative.