[geeks] Solaris 10 U6: install failure

[Shannon Hendrix]

Today I wasted a good few hours trying to upgrade to Solaris 10 U6.

I need that release because it improves Intel e1000 support, has  
mirrored ZFS root, and other things I want and need.

However, Sun removed the working sata_nv driver and replaced it with  
one that only does AHCI.  Technically it is supposed to be able to do  
non AHCI too, but that part is still broken.

Sun is aware of the issue, and their response is that they have no  
idea at present what is wrong.  It affects even some Sun branded  
servers.

The new driver seems OK for hard drives, so if you can work around the  
boot/install issue, it should be OK.

For example, I can boot from the install DVD, but Solaris U6 is then  
unable to mount it.

That said...

I need to find some way to get this installed, so I'm looking for ideas.

The current setup is an 80GB root drive and a 400GB drive as a zpool  
with the data.

I was planning to install a pair of 320GB drives to use as a mirrored  
root.

All of the data is backed up to the 400GB zpool and external NAS  
storage, so the plan was to start with the new drives and then copy  
data back.

Is it possible to boot from the U4 DVD (which works great) and then  
install from the U6 DVD?

Any ideas appreciated.

I suppose I could end the pain by buying a new server that has full  
AHCI support, and just move the CPU, memory, and drives over.

I only paid $350 for the server, and all my upgrades should run fine  
on a new AM2 socket system.

However, I hate waste so I want a way to get this done if there is one.

This is a server I use for both personal and work duty, so I can't  
have it down for days.  Whatever I do needs to be something I can get  
done in 2-4 hours.

Really, it should take no longer than 1-2 hours to do this, if I can  
solve the driver issue.


-- 
"Where some they sell their dreams for small desires."