Date: 25 May 1996 16:43:46 -0400 From: Robert Nicholson <robert@elastica.com> Cc: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Installing Solaris 2.5 x86 on the second drive (System Commander issues solved) Message-ID: <eybmgscu5.fsf@justine.elastica.com>
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The following message is a courtesy copy of an article
that has been posted as well.
OK Some of you might have been following my problems with installing
Solaris x86 on a second drive. I'm posting this to the other unix
groups in the advent that somebody else can benefit from this
information and if it leads to educational discussion then that's
fine.
OK my problem was that basically after installing Solaris 2.5 x86 on
the second drive in the >512MB<1024MB area on my 4MB disk System
Commander wouldn't boot from the partition despite the fact that
System Commander is perfectly capable of booting from a drive other
than drive 0) Unlike Solaris's boot loader.
Well, it turns out that there are two ways to indicate in the OS's
boot record where the boot portion of the OS begins. One way is via
the Starting HSC combination and some local LBA like number. Solaris
apparently uses the later where as DOS uses the former.
After installing Solaris System Commander isn't aware of the boot
record because it uses the HSC combination instead to locate the
partition and consequently doesn't find it. So even when you tell
System Commander manually about the existance of the partition it
won't find the boot record consequently won't be able to boot.
So, the solution I've find (by shear fluke) I might add is to use NT's
Disk Administrator to write a signature to the disk. What this does is
fix the _mismatch_ b/w the the two pieces of information OS's use to
locate the partition. Fortuntely, NT trust the FIRST LBA figure before the
HSC combination and adjust the HSC combination to match the FIRST LBA
figure.
I've tested this and once I write the signature I'm able to use the
disk as I should be.
Now this will appear a tad vague to the people who understand this
stuff but rest assured it's somewhat correct. I've worked with
V-Communications on this and they plan to address the problem but I
thought the workaround was interesting.
I'd be interested in hearing how other OS's handle this problem and
_why_ Solaris puts incorrect HSC combinations after the install in the
boot record.
Also my terminology is probably a bit off here as I don't fully
understand the issues involved and I welcome any corrections.
--
"Under the circumstances I will sit down."
(PGP key: send email with Subject: request pgp key)
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