Solaris 8 boot disk...

I have been having problems trying to install Solaris 8 to a PC. I keep getting the error "can't open - no VTOC" when booting with the CD and people have been suggesting I need to use the Solaris fdisk and format tools but I cant find a boot disk anywhere on the CD or the web site. Can anyone tell me where to download one or maybe email me one???
Getting frustrated in Ohio,
Thanks a million

Hi,
You can download the DCA diskette from the web site:
http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/#s8
You would find all the releases of Solaris. You can check the integriry of the CD which you have burnt by mounting it on another Solaris machine(if you have any). You can try booting from the cd 1 of 2 after you have created a small dos partition and made it active.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Anshul

Similar Messages

How to mount USB & CDROM drives from single user mode - Solaris boot disk?

Hi All,
I need to carry out ufsrestore on a single newly replaced system disk (no redundancy / mirroring) from either USB or CDROM drives from the following steps:
( i ) GRUB => e, e, cdrom –s, Enter, b (boot from Solaris 10 x86 media).
( ii ) Choose menu 1 for Install Solaris Interactive Mode to reach single user mode.Below are the commands that I have tried in single user mode without success:
mount –r –F pcfs /dev/dsk/c1t0d0p0 /cdrom (after unmount Solaris CD)
mount: /dev/dsk/c1t0d0p0 is not a DOS filesystem.
svcadm –v enable smserver
svcadm: Pattern ‘smserver’ doesn’t match any instances
svcadm enable autofs
svcadm: Pattern ‘autofs’ doesn’t match any instances
devfsadm
devfsadm: mkdir failed for /dev 0s1ed: Read-only file system
mkdir /mnt
mkdir: Failed to make directory “/mnt”; Read-only file systemPart of the problem is due to the current READ ONLY filesystems which does not allow the creation of mount point such as /mnt.
I have been able to create both / root (/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0) and /export/home (/dev/dsk/c1t0d0s0) filesystems with newfs that are awaiting for restore using ufsrestore.
The only option I am left with is to attach a secondary disk to install Solaris 10 on either of them before bring the system to multi-user mode so that service such as volmgt, autofs, volfs are available to access USB & CDROM drives.
Any suggestion on how to resolve this issue?
Many thanks,
Jack

Hi JKGN,
Is the directory a located under the root filesystem. ie /a? Are there any other mount point for say USB drive as well? I am not in a position to try it out right now but will get back
to you soon on whether /a exist or not.
Btw, the last thing I managed to do on this system at the time was added a secondary 1TB internal disk with the intention to restore both / and /export/home data onto this disk while
making use of all the disk device management services such as the following services only available in a fully installed Solaris system (both single & multi-user modes) installed on the
primary disk:
# svcs smserver
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         Jun_08   svc:/network/rpc/smserver:default
# svcs autofs
STATE          STIME    FMRI
online         Jun_08   svc:/system/filesystem/autofs:default
# devfsadm
# iostat -En
c1t0d0           Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: ATA      Product: SAMSUNG HD321KJ Revision: 0-11 Serial No:
Size: 320.07GB <320072932864 bytes>
Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 0 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
Illegal Request: 41 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0
c0t0d0           Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 5 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: PHILIPS Product: DVD+-RW DVD8801 Revision: AD21 Serial
Size: 17.54GB <17538875392 bytes>
Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 5 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
Illegal Request: 10 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0
c2t0d0           Soft Errors: 0 Hard Errors: 0 Transport Errors: 0
Vendor: JetFlash Product: Transcend 16GB   Revision: 1100 Serial No:
Size: 0.00GB <0 bytes>
Media Error: 0 Device Not Ready: 0 No Device: 0 Recoverable: 0
Illegal Request: 7 Predictive Failure Analysis: 0
# rmformat
Looking for devices...
     1. Volmgt Node: /vol/dev/aliases/cdrom0
        Logical Node: /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2
        Physical Node: /pci@0,0/pci-ide@1f,1/ide@0/sd@0,0
        Connected Device: PHILIPS DVD+-RW DVD8801 AD21
        Device Type: DVD Reader/WriterHowever, I was disappointed that "iostat -En" has not found the secondary disk (1 TB) even though it was available earlier, for Solaris installation as the only disk on the same system.
As a result, I am left with no option but the need to rebuild this system with only a single primary disk while in single user mode. However, the single user mode that I am in is the
one from Solaris installation disk with restrictive (_cannot create folder for mount point or running disk management utilities_) capability such as those services just covered, compared to one from a completed Solaris installation system with full access to all filesystems and utilities / commands in general.
I would very much value your assistance on how to mount both CD & USB in this restrictive limited Read Only OS (assume that it is running from memory) in order to get complete access to
the blank primary disk so that full restore with ufsrestore could take place.
Thanks in advance,
Jack
Edited by: 797805 on 9/06/2012 04:15

Solaris 8 for intel boot disk.

My Solaris 8 for intel boot disk was delivered to me corrupted and will not boot in serveral of my machines, how do I go about creating another one or should I request a replacement. Thanks.

Hi
This is Raghu from Hyderabad, India
you can download bootdisk creation files from following site.
http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/
try in with this URL it may be help you out.
please give me reply
Raghu

Download boot disk of Solaris 2.5.1

Hi, all.
Where can I download a boot disk of Solaris 2.5.1?
Thanks

What do you mean? An ISO image of the boot CDROM? Or
do you want to copy a boot disk from one system to
another? I don't know about the former, my guess is
that unless you are booting from already existing
media from a CDROM on a system in your LAN, which is
doable, the answer is "no".
The latter idea, using dd to copy one disk to another
is doable with cavaets. The disks must be of the
same type and the system hardware configs must be
the same. There are help documents on SunSolve about
the details. There are many risks and even though
you get a copy, it might fail to boot.

Solaris Basic Boot DIsk?

I've been tasked with "sterilizing" of a bunch of Sun workstations and servers. I need a boot disk or boot cd which will allow me to boot the machines and run dmesg so I can record the system specs of each one and then run BCWipe or similar to wipe the hard drives. Some systems have cd drives some only have floppys.
I don't have the passwords for any of them so I can't just boot normally.
There is a program called Tufftest which will do this for PCs but I basically need the Sun equivalent.
I'm very new to Sun systems, any suggestions appreciated.

Hi,
You can download the DCA diskette from the web site:
http://soldc.sun.com/support/drivers/dca_diskettes/#s8
You would find all the releases of Solaris. You can check the integriry of the CD which you have burnt by mounting it on another Solaris machine(if you have any). You can try booting from the cd 1 of 2 after you have created a small dos partition and made it active.
Hope that helps.
Regards
Anshul

[Sol 10 11/06 SPARC on Sun Blade 2500] Could not determine boot disk?

dear all,
I have a problem during installation of Solaris 10 11/06 Sparc on Sun Blade 2500. After I choosing "Initial Install" at "Select Upgrade or Initial Install" stage, appears the following error message :
"Note : Default install is not possible. Default boot disk could not be determined"
I have already concerned that the installation DVD is well burned, and the DVD-ROM is worked, but I'm not sure that the HD itself is well or defect. Could anyone tell me or figure out how would I do?

Most likely you have a disk problem. I think it may not have found a disk. If the install process left you in a shell, I would suggest using format, to see what it thinks. My guess it does not see any disks.
Another option from the ok prompt (also called OBP), is run probe-scsi or whatever the device type it. Check the options available at the ok prompt.

Boot up from other node's boot disk

Hi,at the moment I got problem to boot up one of two nodes-cluster, because its boot disk seems to be damaged. Is it possible to boot up from other node's boot disk? If yes,how to do it? If not,are there any ideas,beside replacing the damaged boot disk? Because the machines are in testbed, I think my compay doesn't want spend much money to replace the disk in this short time =)
The version is SOLARIS 8 and SUN Cluster 3.0.

Hi,
Sorry to disappoint you but you cannot in Sun Cluster have one node boot from the boot disk of the other node. Do you have a backup of the boot disk?
Your best option is to replace it I guess
Kristien

Netra T1 booting problems, works only if I "boot disk"

I'm having a problem booting my Netra T1 AC200. When I issue the "poweron" command from the LOM or when I issue the "reset" command from the ok prompt, the system fails to boot, gives me an error, and drops back to the ok prompt. However, if I type "boot disk" at the ok prompt, the system will boot just fine. I have tried playing with setenv, but eventually returned all of those values to their defaults. I have a fresh install of Solaris 9.
The error message and the output of printenv are below.
Thank you in advance!!
LOM event: +1h36m0s host reset
Resetting ...
Netra T1 200 (UltraSPARC-IIe 500MHz), No Keyboard
OpenBoot 4.0, 1024 MB memory installed, Serial #51329155.
Ethernet address 0:3:ba:f:38:83, Host ID: 830f3883.
000000000000001500000000f000000000000000000000000000000000000000ffffffffd3858020000000000000000d00000004
Watchdog Reset
Externally Initiated Reset
ok
ok printenv
Variable Name Value Default Value
ras-shutdown-enabled? false false
shutdown-temp 75 75
warning-temp 70 70
env-monitor disabled disabled
diag-passes 1 1
diag-continue? 0 0
diag-targets 0 0
diag-verbosity 0 0
keyboard-click? false false
keymap
scsi-initiator-id 7 7
#power-cycles 0 No default
system-board-serial# No default
system-board-date No default
ttyb-rts-dtr-off false false
ttyb-ignore-cd true true
ttya-rts-dtr-off false false
ttya-ignore-cd true true
ttyb-mode 9600,8,n,1,- 9600,8,n,1,-
ttya-mode 9600,8,n,1,- 9600,8,n,1,-
pcia-probe-list 8,5,6,7 8,5,6,7
pcib-probe-list 7,c,3,d,5 7,c,3,d,5
mfg-mode off off
diag-level max max
fcode-debug? false false
output-device ttya ttya
input-device ttya ttya
load-base 16384 16384
auto-boot-retry? false false
boot-command boot boot
auto-boot? true true
watchdog-reboot? false false
diag-file
diag-device net net
boot-file
boot-device disk net disk net
local-mac-address? false false
net-timeout 0 0
ansi-terminal? true true
screen-#columns 80 80
screen-#rows 34 34
silent-mode? false false
use-nvramrc? false false
nvramrc
security-mode none No default
security-password No default
security-#badlogins 0 No default
oem-logo No default
oem-logo? false false
oem-banner No default
oem-banner? false false
hardware-revision No default
last-hardware-update No default
diag-switch? false false
ok

The drive is disk0 on my Netra T1 AC200. Typing "boot disk" results in the system booting just fine. "reset-all" or "poweron" causes the error described above. My aliases are as follows:
ok devalias
lom /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ebus@c/SUNW,lomh@14,200000
dload /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/network@c,1:,
net2 /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/network@5,1
net /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/network@c,1
diskx /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8,1/disk@0,0
diskx3 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8,1/disk@3,0
diskx2 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8,1/disk@2,0
diskx1 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8,1/disk@1,0
diskx0 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8,1/disk@0,0
scsix /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8,1
disk /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8/disk@0,0
disk3 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8/disk@3,0
disk2 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8/disk@2,0
disk1 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8/disk@1,0
disk0 /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8/disk@0,0
scsi /pci@1f,0/pci@1/scsi@8
cdrom /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@d/cdrom@0,0:f
ide /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@d
ttyb /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/isa@7/serial@0,2e8
ttya /pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/isa@7/serial@0,3f8

Secondary Boot Disk

I am trying to set up a secondary backup bootable disk on my IBM Netvista.
I found an excellent article on this subject at
http://spiralbound.net/2005/05/10/how-to-copy-a-solaris-boot-drive-to-a-disk-with-a-different-partition-layout/
It outlines how to create a secondary boot drive on sun hardware but lacks the x86 part. It helped me a great deal however I am now getting the error "failed to mount boot see svcs -x" and "mount :/dev/dsk/c1d1p0:boot is not a DOS filesystem" BUT it does boot up on that disk in single user mode.
Does any one have any idea what is happening and how to get this to work properly? I want to be able to boot up to either disk by using options in the configuration assistant startup menu. I would really like to create a document like that cited above but for x86; that others could refer to also.
Ken

It really isn't as hard as it may seem. In fact, I skimmed the article quickly and I can't find much differences between Sparc & x86 here. The keyword being "installboot" to "bootstrap" the second disk.
As a rule of thumb you should try to turn of logging since that can get some weird results. At least on software raid, I'm not sure what'll happen if you just need a second disk to boot from but I guess it can't hurt. Just keep it in the back of your mind for starters.
How did you prepare that 2nd disk by the way ? I trust you didn't mess with the slices, because that differs heavily on Sparc & x86.

How to back up a ZFS boot disk ?

Hello all,
I have just installed Solaris 10 update 6 (10/08) on a Sparc machine (an Ultra 45 workstation) using ZFS for the boot disk.
Now I want to port a custom UFS boot disk backup script to ZFS.
Basically, this script copies the boot disk to a secondary disk and makes the secondary disk bootable.
With UFS, I had to play with the vfstab a bit to allow booting off the secondary disk, but this is not necessary with ZFS.
How can I perform such a backup of my ZFS boot disk ?
I tried the following (source disk: c1t0d0, target disk: c1t1d0):
# zfs list
NAME USED AVAIL REFER MOUNTPOINT
rpool 110G 118G 94K /rpool
rpool/ROOT 4.58G 118G 18K legacy
rpool/ROOT/root 4.58G 25.4G 4.50G /
rpool/ROOT/root/var 79.2M 4.92G 79.2M /var
rpool/dump 16.0G 118G 16.0G -
rpool/export 73.3G 63.7G 73.3G /export
rpool/homelocal 21.9M 20.0G 21.9M /homelocal
rpool/swap 16G 134G 16K -
# zfs snapshot -r rpool@today
# zpool create -f -R /mnt rbackup c1t1d0
# zfs send -R rpool@today | zfs receive -F -d rbackup               <- This one fails (see below)
# installboot /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/zfs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s0
The send/receive command fails after transfering the "/" filesystem (4.5 GB) with the following error message:
cannot mount '/mnt': directory is not empty
There may be some kind of unwanted recursion here (trying to back up the backup or something) but I cannot figure it out.
I tried a workaround: creating the mount point outside the snapshot:
zfs snapshot -r rpool@today
mkdir /var/tmp/mnt
zpool create -f -R /var/tmp/mnt rbackup c1t1d0
zfs send -R rpool@today | zfs receive -F -d rbackup
But it still fails, this time with mounting "/var/tmp/mnt".
So how does one back up the ZFS boot disk to a secondary disk in a live environment ?

OK, this post requires some clarification.
First, thanks to robert.cohen and rogerfujii for giving some elements.
The objective is to make a backup of the boot disk on another disk of the same machine. The backup must be bootable just like the original disk.
The reason for doing this instead of (or, even better, in addition to) mirroring the boot disk is to be able to quickly recover a stable operating system in case anything gets corrupted on the boot disk. Corruption includes hardware failures, but also any software corruption which could be caused by a virus, an attacker or an operator mistake (rm -rf ...).
After doing lots of experiments, I found two potential solutions to this need.
Solution 1 looks like what rogerfujii suggested, albeit with a few practical additions.
It consists in using ZFS mirroring and breaking up the mirror after resilvering:
     - Configure the backup disk as a mirror of the boot disk :
     zpool attach -f rpool <boot disk>s0 <backup disk>s0
     - Copy the boot block to the backup disk:
     installboot -F zfs /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/zfs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/<backup disk>s0
     - Monitor the mirror resilvering:
     zpool status rpool
     - Wait until the "action" field disappears (this can be scripted).
     - Prevent any further resilvering:
     zpool offline rpool <backup disk>s0
     Note: this step is mandatory because detaching the disk without offlining it first results in a non bootable backup disk.
     - Detach the backup disk from the mirror:
     zpool detach rpool <backup disk>s0
     POST-OPERATIONS:
     After booting on the backup disk, assuming the main boot disk is unreachable:
     - Log in as super-user.
     - Detach the main boot disk from the mirror
     zpool detach rpool <boot disk>s0
This solution has many advantages, including simplicity and using no dirty tricks. However, it has two major drawbacks:
- When booting on the backup disk, if the main boot disk is online, it will be resilvered with the old data.
- There is no easy way to access the backup disk data without rebooting.
So if you accidentally lose one file on the boot disk, you cannot easily recover it from the backup.
This is because the pool name is the same on both disks, therefore effectively preventing any pool import.
Here is now solution 2, which I favor.
It is more complex and dependent on the disk layout and ZFS implementation changes, but overall offers more flexibility.
It may need some additions if there are other disks than the boot disk with ZFS pools (I have not tested that case yet).
***** HOW TO BACKUP A ZFS BOOT DISK TO ANOTHER DISK *****
1. Backup disk partitioning
- Clean up ZFS information from the backup disk:
The first and last megabyte of the backup disk, which hold ZFS information (plus other stuff) are erased:
dd if=/dev/zero seek=<backup disk #blocks minus 2048> count=2048 of=/dev/rdsk/<backup disk>s2
dd if=/dev/zero count=2048 of=/dev/rdsk/<backup disk>s2
- Label and partition the backup disk in SMI :
format -e <backup disk>
     label
     0          -> SMI label
     y
     (If more questions asked: press Enter 3 times.)
     partition
     (Create a single parition, number 0, filling the whole disk)
     label
     0
     y
     quit
     quit
2. Data copy
- Create the target ZFS pool:
zpool create -f -o failmode=continue -R /mnt -m legacy rbackup <backup disk>s0
Note: the chosen pool name is here "rbackup".
- Create a snapshot of the source pool :
zfs snapshot -r rpool@today
- Copy the data :
zfs send -R rpool@today | zfs receive -F -d rbackup
- Remove the snapshot, plus its copy on the backup disk :
zfs destroy -r rbackup@today
zfs destroy -r rpool@today
3. Backup pool reconfiguration
- Edit the following files:
/mnt/etc/vfstab
/mnt/etc/power.conf
/mnt/etc/dumpadm.conf
In these files, replace the source pool name "rpool" with the backup pool name "rbackup".
- Remove the ZFS mount list:
rm /mnt/etc/zfs/zpool.cache
4. Making the backup disk bootable
- Note the name of the current boot filesystem:
df -k /
E.g.:
# df -k /
Filesystem kbytes used avail capacity Mounted on
rpool/ROOT/root 31457280 4726390 26646966 16% /
- Configure the boot filesystem on the backup pool:
zpool set bootfs=rbackup/ROOT/root rbackup
Note: "rbackup/ROOT/root" is derived from the main boot filesystem name "rpool/ROOT/root".
- Copy the ZFS boot block to the backup disk:
installboot -F zfs /usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/zfs/bootblk /dev/rdsk/<backup disk>s0
5. Cleaning up
- Detach the target pool:
zpool export rbackup
I hope this howto will be useful to those like me who need to change all their habits while migrating to ZFS.
Regards.
HL

Hardware raid boot disks on m5000

Is it possible to configure a raid 1 on boot disks to this machine?
The M5000 has the LSI 1064 controller and it seems to be possible..
After booting from dvd (boot cdrom -s):
# raidctl -c -r 1 c0t0d0 c0t1d0
Creating RAID volume will destroy all data on spare space of member disks,
proceed (yes/no)? y
Operation not support with volume of this level.
The controller is in GOOD state...
# raidctl -S
0 "LSI_1064"
0.0.0 GOOD
0.1.0 GOOD
3 "LSI_1064"
# format
Searching for disks...done
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c0t0d0 <SUN146G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 848>
/pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/pci@0/scsi@1/sd@0,0
1. c0t1d0 <SUN146G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 848>
/pci@0,600000/pci@0/pci@8/pci@0/scsi@1/sd@1,0
Any ideas?
Many thanks,
Mauro.

I configured mirror boot disk using Solaris Volume Manager...

Mirror boot disk with soft partitions

We've been investigating Solaris Volume Manager with Solaris 9 and have some questions. We currently use DiskSuite 4.2.1 to mirror our boot disks on Solaris 8. The fact that SVM is integrated into the kernel on Solaris 9 got us thinking. Here are some questions I would greatly appreciate answers to:
1. Is it possible to have your boot disk partitions (/root, /var, swap) be soft partitions and then mirror the soft partitions (so disk 1 you'd have 3 soft p's and on disk 2 you'd have 3 soft p's and create the mirror from them)?
2. What would the problems be with this? The major one we could foresee is not being able to see your /root, /var and swap partitions in the case of having to boot from the CD, but if SVM is in the Solaris 9 kernel, wouldn't that solve that issue. Is this a problem? Are there other issues/problems we're not thinking of?
3. Finally, is having your boot partitions be mirrored soft partitons a supported configuration from Sun?
Thanks,
Bob Jones
[email protected]

Hi,
micmac95 wrote:
The reason the HDD is split into two partitions is so if there is an error with the OS, they can reinstall it without affecting the user files.
Makes sense in a way. But does this 'they can reinstall...' imply that you don't have the OSX Install DVD for your Mac ?
Cause you need that DVD for installing the BootCamp Drivers of it !
I do have admin, and I can re-partition my HDD, but I cannot touch the OS partition.
If I set it up like this: http://micmac95.fileave.com/HDD%20setup.png , by shrinking the USER partition, will I be able to install windows on the BOOTCAMP partition?
Personally I never tried this 'Shrinking one partition to make another partition' approach with BootCamp.
But, if you don't have one now is the time to make a complete backup of all the things on your Mac !
Before 'fumbling' with partitions I always make sure to have a backup.
Stefan

Choise the boot disk

hi,
This week I try to install on blade 1500, debian on the first disk and the second disk OSOL
and the osol primary disk with debian secondary disk.
I keep the solution first disk OSOL second disk debian
I'm not on that silo installed on the second boot disk!
I made a ssh from a OSOL X86 on the blade 1500 OSOL svn_131.
here are the results:
admin@usrv-starbuck:~$ ls -la /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 2010-03-15 18:07 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 -> ../../devices/pci@8,700000/ide@6/sd@0,0:a
admin@usrv-starbuck:~$ ls -la /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 41 2010-03-15 18:07 /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s1 -> ../../devices/pci@8,700000/ide@6/sd@0,0:b
admin@usrv-starbuck:~$
admin@usrv-starbuck:~# format
Searching for disks...done
AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
0. c2t0d0 <DEFAULT cyl 38307 alt 2 hd 16 sec 255>
/pci@1e,600000/ide@d/dad@0,0
1. c2t1d0 <GNU Parted Custom cyl 9729 alt 0 hd 255 sec 63>
/pci@1e,600000/ide@d/dad@1,0
Specify disk (enter its number): ^D
admin@usrv-starbuck:~#
I can not implement a command prtvtoc
but i'm later to my projet : can y to choise os startup on my blade 1500
i have create nvalias disk and disk1
how to choise disk boot, primary secondary disk.
Best regards
philo
Edited by: philo_neo on Mar 25, 2010 6:23 AM

Hi,
I have successfully used the older accelleraid 150 with
solaris X86 .
A PC SCSI controller that have a boot disk must have
an active BIOS .
Have you enabled the Bios on the Card ?
//Lars

Simplest way to protect the boot disk

I have a solaris T2000 machine.
It has two internal disks - and it boots off one of these. The disks are not in an hardware or software RAID configuration. There is nothing on the second disk that I cannot move. Please don't ask why this wasn't setup from the start - I had no control over it.
So, what is the simplest way of getting around this single point of failure with the minimum of disruption to the service the box provides?
1) To implement hardware RAID using raidctl would require a re-install of the OS - I do not want to have to do this
2) Is it possible to create a new disk from the SAN, copy the boot areas etc and make then make the machine boot from the SAN?
3) Use solaris volume manager to implement some kind of software RAID on the second disk?
4) The boot disk is currently an ufs file system - could we convert this to zfs and then implement zpool mirroring without the need for a reinstall?
Many thanks

In my opinion, the simplest is option 3. Here's some instructions on how to accomplish:
http://wikis.sun.com/display/BigAdmin/Mirroring+root+With+Solaris+Volume+Manager+in+the+Solaris+9+and+10+OS
However, if I were in your position, I would do option 4. Use liveupgrade to convert to zfs and use zpool mirroring.

CLUSTERING WITH ZFS BOOT DISK

hi guys,
i'm looking for create a new cluster on two standalone server
the two server boot with a rpool zfs, and i don't know if in installation procedure the boot disk was layered with a dedicated slice for global device.
Is possible to install SunCluster with a rpool boot zfs disk?
What do i have to do?
Alessio

Hi!
I am have 10 node Sun Cluster.
All nodes have zfs rpool with mirror.
is better create mirror zfs disk boot after installation of Sun Cluster or not?I create zfs mirror when install Solaris 10 OS.
But I don't see any problems to do this after installation of Sun Cluster or Solaris 10.
P.S. And you may use UFS global with ZFS root.
Anatoly S. Zimin

Solaris 8 boot disk...

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