Installation problems with Solaris 8 on Intel

Question

Howdy,
I am having some problem with my installation of Solaris 8 on Intel. I am installing the system on a P133 (Asus TX97 motherboard). When I first start the installation and perform the system scan I get the following error:
The PnP ISA: IDE Controller programable device was unable to be programmed.
This could be caused by two possible reasons:
- Lack of resouces available
- There is a conflict with the following already-existing device: 8086,7111 - Bus Mastering IDE Controller
When I bring up the View/Edit device settings and I scroll to the IDE controller there is an ! mark beside the PCI IDE controller. The controler is specifying: Bus 0, device: 1, function: 1 port 1F0-1F7, 3F6, 170-177, 376, E000-E00F, 0 IRQ 14, 15
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to resolve this conflict? I tried removing the PCI IDE interface and then installing a ISA IDE interfact (for IRQ: 14, IRQ 15 automatically put a PnP IDE controller there). This seemed to resolve the conflict but then I received a: No Bootable devices have been found.
If anyone can help out with how to resolve the conflict, or what the No Bootable Devices have been found error it would be greatly appreciated.
Currently there is a partition set up with NT on it, but I wish to basically get rid of everything on the HD and install Solaris on it. FYI, when I check the HD's in NT it mentions I/0: 1F0-1F7 IRQ 14 and also I/O 170-177 IRQ 15.
Any help would greatly be appreciated.
Regards,
S.

Answer 1

When I close down Solais in the CDE I am taken back to the logon screen
and I turn the PC off.Don't do that. If you simply turn off the PC, the OS has no chance to
write back cached / modified disk data back to the HDD - this is also the
reason why solaris has to check the filesystems on the next boot and apparently
has to repair filesystem defects.
What you have to do is shutdown the machine, before you can power it off.
Login as user "root" and use the command
init 5
or
halt
"init 5" will shutdown system services, by executing commands from
/etc/rc0.d/K* with argument "stop". Then it'll sync all modified disk blocks to
the HDD, kills all remaining processes and unmounts all filesystems. In this
state it's safe to power off the machine!
"halt" is a quick-and-dirty shutdown. It does not stop system services (the
/etc/rc0.d/K* commands are not run). But, it syncs all modified disk blocks
to the HDD, kills all processes and unmounts all filesystems. "init 5" is preferred,
especially if you have services like a database server running on the machine,
which needs to be cleanly shutdown. On the other hand, with a default solaris
installation and no extra services, a simple "halt" should be OK.
Btw. if multiple users are logged in on the machine, you should also have a look
at the shutdown(1M) command. "shutdown" sends warnings to the logged in
users that the machine is about to be shut down, ...