Attempting a clean install of Genera 8.3 on XL1201 using just a CD-ROM drive and a blank hard drive. However, from preliminary results, this seems to require a working Genera to install Genera again.

References:
- Genera 8.3 Software Installation Guide for XL Family Machines
- Formatting SCSI Disks

Format SCSI Disk

I have connected three devices with these SCSI IDs to the XL1201:

0: SCSI2SD originally purchased, with 12G partition - boot
1: Seagate ST336918N (TODO: URL to PDF) to install
3: Second SCSI2SD with Genera 8.3 Install CD
4: Second SCSI2SD with Genera 8.1.1 Install CD

Process:

Boot Genera 8.3
Log in as usual Login Lisp-Machine
Issue the format command and follow the prompts. It will eventually ask if you want to format it.
Answer Yes to the question, and it will begin formatting. Genera will give absolutely no useful feedback while this is happening.

Command: Format SCSI Disk (SCSI address) 1 (keywords) :Sector Size (sector size in bytes [default 1280]) 1280 :M  
ore Processing (Default, Yes, or No [default Default]) No  
SCSI device 1 is a SEAGATE ST336918N, conforming to protocol SCSI-3,  
    with a logical block size of 512 bytes/block,
    with a physical sector size of 512 bytes/sector,
    with a non-changeable interleave value of 1.
Format it at 1280 bytes per sector? (Y or N) Yes.

At the point you hit Y it just sits there with the cursor after the period in Yes. The status line now shows CL USER: SCSI and the SCSI is infrequently underlined. Eventually it will finish.

Format succeeded.  
New geometry is 28870144 blocks of 1280 bytes/block.

TODO: (Pics 6/22 5:23PM)

If you now Show Directory FEP8:> (because SCSI ID 1 is FEP8) it will tell you Error: Disk unit 8 is not mounted because it doesn't have a filesystem. We can create one with Command: Create Initial Fep Filesystem (FEP unit number) 8 but this will give us an error. Turns out we need to cold boot after a format to get things to work properly.

TODO: Finish

Old Notes Below

Open Question

Is it even possible to install Genera from bare metal using a blank SCSI disk drive, a SCSI CD-ROM and just the the CD-ROM of Genera 8.3 distribution?

Directions

Set up SCSI2SD - see below
Boot to CD-ROM SCSI ID 3
- TODO: Pics
This boots to FEP
Disk Restore doesn't seem to work on any disks however

SCSI2SD setup

This works

Make an ISO of the Genera 8.3 distribution CD
Configure the SCSI2SD as follows:
- General Settings
  - Enable Parity
- Device 1
  - SCSI ID: 3 (or whatever)
  - Device Type: CDROM
  - SD card start sector: 0
  - Sector count: 310880 (whatever the ISO9660 file is divided by 2,048`
  - The rest is unimportant
- Write to SCSI2SD Flash

This does not work

Get just the ISO9660 filesystem partition out of the Genera 8.3 CD-ROM
- This CD has an Apple Partition Map, plus an ISO9660 filesystem, plus an HFS partition
- Mount the CD in the Mac and DD the ISO9660 off it to a file
DD the ISO9660 file back to an SD card
Configure the SCSI2SD as follows:
- General Settings
  - Enable Parity
- Device 1
  - SCSI ID: 3 (or whatever)
  - Device Type: CDROM
  - SD card start sector: 0
  - Sector count: 300474 (whatever the ISO9660 file is divided by 2,048)
  - The rest is unimportant
- Write to SCSI2SD
This isn't seen as an ISO9660 by Genera, FEP and won't boot: Not an ISO9660 error