System information

Power-Up Diagnostics and Display
2-23
2.8 Fail-Safe Loader
The fail-safe loader (FSL) allows you to boot an SRM console from a diskette at
power-up. This allows you to power up without running power-up diagnostics and
load new SRM and FSL console firmware from the firmware diskette.
NOTE: The fail-safe loader should be used only when a failure at power-up
prohibits you from getting to the console program. You cannot boot an
operating system from the fail-safe loader.
If a checksum error is detected when the console is loading at power-up
(error beep code 1-1-2 or 1-1-4), the fail-safe loader is automatically
activated so that you can reinstall the firmware.
The fail-safe loader (FSL) allows you to attempt to recover when one of the
following is the cause of a problem getting to the console program under normal
power-up:
• A hardware or power failure, or accidental power-down during a firmware
upgrade occurred.
• A configuration error, such as an incorrect environment variable setting or an
inappropriate NVRAM script.
• A driver error at power-up.
• A checksum error is detected when the SRM console is loading at power-up
(corrupted firmware).
The fail-safe loader program is available on diskette (AK-R4VLA-CA), or it can be
downloaded from the Internet to create your own diskette.
http://ftp.digital.com/pub/Digital/Alpha/firmware/readme.html
From the FSL program, you can update or load new SRM/AlphaBIOS console
firmware and FSL console firmware.
NOTE: When installing new console firmware, you must enable the flash ROM VPP
enable jumper (J50) on the motherboard. Refer to Appendix A.