How do I format a hard disk and install the OS from scratch?
Unfortunately, the process isn’t intuitive. You can find some salvation in the following document from David Dennis. (If you have trouble reaching it, I also mirror it here.) This document makes a few assumptions that you should know about in advance: (1) that you are installing from CD media; (2) that your SCSI CD-ROM drive is set to ID=4; (3) that you are not using an R4k architecture. Addressing the assumptions: (1) Older versions of IRIX (v4 and earlier) are available on tape; I’ve never built an SGI system from scratch using tape media before, so I’m afraid I can’t help you with this.) (2) For the SCSI ID, change the “4” in the “boot” commands to the SCSI ID of your CD-ROM drive if it’s not “4”. (3) If you are using an R4k Indigo (or any other R4k machine), you will need to use “ARCS” in place of the “IP12”. (E.g., “sashARCS”, “fx.ARCS”.) • What is meant by “SGI-bootable CD-ROM drive”? Easy: the Indigo is only capable of booting from select CD-ROM drives. So if you are buying a CD
