Solaris8 Intel Installation Troubles..

Question

Hi,
I'm trying to install Solaris 8 for Intel on an old HP Vectra VL8i (400 Mhz, 128MB ram). Currently this machine has a screwed up install (*my fault* ) of Linux Mandrake 7.2. I downloaded the Solaris8 binaries off of sun.com and was trying to make a boot diskette on my 2000 adv. server box to then create the bootable .iso cd images (set of 3 cds for install). Once that was done, I had planned to start the install on my Vectra (the one running Mandrake). However, now I realized the "format a: /s" option is no longer supported under 2000. Its not even an option listed under the format help info screen. So I'm in a bit of a pickle...I'm trying to figure out how to get the necessary files on a formatted floppy diskette to make the diskette bootable with CD ROM driver support. I know I need to copy an autoexec.bat, config.sys, and setup the mscdex file to make this work, but I get lost in the details of it all.
A little later,
OK, I reinstalled Mandrake on it and its working fine now that way I can start from a clean point. I burnt 2 CDs of the first installation CD for Solari8 intel to test this with..
According to the informational instructions at Sun.com they recommend using "winzip" to unzip the archive and Adaptec EZ CD Creator to burn a "bootable .iso CD image". Well, I have both those programs and so when I unzipped the .iso file for the installation CD it appeared on my desktop as an adaptec ez cd icon. I opened it up, selected bootable CD (according to cd creator help file to make a bootable cd I need to copy a bootable floppy over to it..), it prompts me for my boot floppy, I insert it works, and creates 2 boot files. Then I add the solaris8.iso for the install cd, and burn the CD. Now, I take it over to my HP Vectra, pop it in, power on, and it loads the oak cd rom driver and sets my floppy as A: and my cdrom as X: I can now enter X: and see the solaris-8.iso file but can't do anything with it.....
FYI: I have set the CDROM to boot before the HDD in the bios.
My next attempt after reading your post was to just extract the .iso file from the zip archive and then burn it in ISO format as is...no bootable CD junk per Adaptec's Help file. I do that and pop it in and my computer does nothing, just boots up to linux mandrake because it doesn't start the install when it hits the cdrom first....again, just has the solaris8 install .iso file on it, and this time nothing else on the CD.
My question is, is there something I am missing regarding the install .iso file? Do I have to extract that to something? Windows views it as an archive.... I have scoured the sun docs and solaris intel install information and not much is on this except "extract using winzip and burn a bootable .iso using adaptec easy cd creator with the .iso file you extracted from winzip". I'm really confused at this point...I know I was trying to load it on top of a Linux Mandrake OS, but it had 4.2 GB of free space. I can't even get the installation process STARTED!!! LOL!
Thanks for any help...
PS...I think something is messed up with my HDD now. I went through fdisking my non-dos partitions (linux mandrake) and formatting the HDD from a boot floppy to see if this might help. It didn't. However, now there is supposedly nothing on my HDD. However if I just let it boot up it comes up to a "grub" shell, and has only limited functionality (like 20 commands). So there is obviously something still left on my HDD.
Oh also, before that I tried using the first Solaris OS .iso file not the INITIAL install .iso I was previously using. This is the .iso you mentioned I should try to use. I am still stuck at the same place...it won't start the install. I don't know if its because something is incorrect with my HDD or if its something I'm missing regarding copying the .iso onto the CD to start with....ANY, and I do mean ANY help is greatly appreciated here!

Answer 1

Hi, I'm not sure that I understanded your actual problem correctly, but I think that your installation CD's, where you said are .iso files, you messed up. The ISO files are images, like HD partitions archived in one file for portability. You have to burn those images with burner which supports ISO images, in other words, burning software unarchives the ISO image while the burn process, so correctly burned CD contains all ISO images files and directories , not just one big ISO file. I think 'cdrecord' in Linux supports ISO images.
Sorry my bad english, its not my native language :)
. jani