I don't know if this is offtopic... but googling gave no (useful) results amd wanted to check if you guys saw something similar.

The problem is this: if any of my LaCie external USB disks are plugged in my Sun Ultra 20 M2, BIOS hangs and fails to boot. Bios is upgraded with latest version (Tools and drivers CD v. 1.6a). Furthermore, my LaCie mobile disk is listed on Solaris HCL: LaCie Lacie Mobile Hard Drive 250 GB

Any hint on how to troubleshoot this issue? The only thing I tried was disabling boot for these devices in the bios but result is the same (as expected, because the internal disk drive was the first in the list).

Thanks,
Enrico.

That's weird, disabling USB boot should prevent the BIOS from searching any USB devices. Try moving the hard drive that your bootloader is installed on as the first boot device.

Also, where is it hanging? Is it hanging right after the BIOS boots or does the OS boot and hang?

Your BIOS choke on EFI labels.

I believe this is fixed in a BIOS update:
http://www.sun.com/desktop/workstati...ds.jsp#UltraM2

That's what I hoped but it appeared it isn't. I'll try moving my disk at first place in the list as soon as I return home.

It's the BIOS that hangs during POST.

Thanks,
Enrico.

Maybe, this disk is in a ZFS pool, indeed.

Unfortunately it appears that my BIOS is the latest version published (1.45.0). If that's a BIOS bug it's a pretty weird.

For your information, yesterday I posted the same question in forum.java.sun.com and this was the answer I got by a user:
Tonight I'll try that too (this is VERY weird, being my keyboard a Sun Unix Type 7) and I'll let you know. This bug is annoying because it prevents me to restart the machine, by any means, without being physically present.

Thanks,
Enrico.

So: I collected all the USB devices I could and I made a reboot for each device and I indeed had problems with several disks (and no keyboard, luckily: that must be funny...). jlliagre, I tend to exclude the problem of the EFI label because it gave problem with an unformatted disk, too.

Is it possible to fill bugs for a workstation BIOS?

Thanks,
Enrico.

Hopefully yes, at least if you are under warranty or having a H/W support contract.