[SPARCbook] Problem with upgraded SB 3GX (64M/6.4G)

[Sunder]

Ken Hansen wrote:
> 
> Hello all,
>         I am having a problem with rebuilding my SB 3GX
> now that I have upgraded the RAM to 64 Meg and put a new
> HD inside. I can boot off the original 1.2 Gig drive
> with my new RAM size (but no suspend/resume!), but when
> I put the new 6.4Gig SCSI drive inside the tray and
> boot the laptop, I can not get the install to accept the
> drive (no valid Sun disklabel IIRC)...

If you have an external 512 byte/block SCSI CDROM (i.e.: A Sun compatible
CDROM), you can boot off of that, and upgrade to Solaris 2.6.

Once you go to 2.6 be sure to throw the tadpole 2.6 patches or else you won't
have power management, X, or anything else.  If you decide to go with 2.6,
don't forget to apply the latest recommended Sun patches, including security,
Y2K, etc.  Then go have a visit to ftp://metalab.unc.edu for the usual GNUwarez
of packages you'll be needing, etc.  

(Mine took overnight to apply the 2.6 patches, be sure your sparcbook has lots
of ventillation while you install/patch 2.6 as the power manager is disabled
and your book will get very hot!  I popped the feet up on mine and placed it on
a slab of marble from the kitchen, then aimed a fan at it!)

2.6 doesn't require a special partition to swap out the RAM to when it sleeps. 
2.5.1 with the NCE does.  


If you really want to stick to 2.5.1, I'd suggest you attach an external CDROM
and another SCSI hard disk.  Boot from a Solaris 2.5.1 CD.  (use boot cdrom
-SVR to skip the install, boot verbosely, etc)

Then Backup all your files to that, shutdown, install the new disk, partition
it with format, newfs each of the slices, restore the files you've backed up,
and install a new boot sector.

Don't forget to include /dev and /devices as well as the NCE stuff!

To install a new boot sector, hit the installboot manpage.  Basically you have
to run /usr/sbin/installboot bootfile /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0 (or whatever disk,
notice there's no slice because this goes before the partitions).  You can
probably find the bootfile in /usr/platform/platform-name/lib/fs/ufs.  

(This should be /usr/platform/sun4m/lib/fs/ufs/bootblk but I don't have the
sparcbook infront of me.)

If you change the partition slice order (ie: var is now slice 3 instead of
whatever it was) Be sure to edit the new /etc/vfstab and if you're sharing
/etc/dfs/dfstab or your tadpole will be very confused when it tries to boot
from different slices. :)


>         I do have external SCSI drives available, should
> I build an external backup of my 1.2Gig HD image, boot
> from that ext. drive/backup and then label/format the new
> drive and restore images into larger partitions?

Don't make an image of the old 1.2G disk - if you do, you'll be limited to
slices of that size when you mount them on the new drive - which is okay if you
know you'll never use more space than you have available, but...

OTOH, If you've dd'ed the backup slice (i.e. that one big s2 slice whose
cylinders encompass the whole disk) congrats, you've just limited your entire
new disk to 1.2Gb :)

It's not an easy process, but it's straightforward, and lots of fun -
especially when you get everything to work!  Enjoy.

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