[SunRescue] Re: Moving system disk between machines

[Chris Powell]

On Thu, 4 May 2000 02:10:47 -0500, Bill Bradford wrote:
> On Wed, May 03, 2000 at 06:39:21PM -0700, Taren wrote:
> > Anytime you change (add/remove) hardware from a system it's necessary to
> > run boot -r (or if you want to use reboot, read the man page) so that the
> > system can rebuild the correct devices.
> 
> You also have to use "installboot" to install the correct bootblock for
> the new system on the drive.

Yup, this was something I did figure. You also need to copy the new
platform dependent ufsboot file to /platform/sun4m/ufsboot (as I
was moving from sun4c /platform/sun4c/ufsboot was present) as well
as installing the bootblk from /usr/platform/sun4m/lib/fs/ufs.

A bit more experimenting with boot -r and boot -a still didn't get
a fully working system. I was ending up with CPU panics or /usr
being mounted read-only or not mounted at all (eek!). When the
machine was not mounting /usr, it was saying 'boot with the -b
option' - isn't this an old SunOS 4.x boot option? It's not on
the SunOS 5.x kernel(1M) manual page! 

It seems as if removing /etc/path_to_inst and doing a boot -ra doesn't
fully configure the machine from scratch. The kernel seems to try and
use /dev and /devices if they are present, even if you want them
rebuilt. Removing everything under /dev and /devices doesn't help as
the machine then won't boot.

My steps to move an IPC system disc to a SS10 (I think!):

1. BACK THE DRIVE UP!
2. Boot from CD. Mount the root partition of the drive on /a and install
    the /platform/sun4m and /usr/platform/sun4m hierarchies and machine
    type (SUNW,....) links. Use 'installboot' to install the boot block.
3. Remove everything under /a/dev and /a/devices.
4. Tar /dev and /devices (i.e. the devices directories of your CD booted
    system). Untar them in /a/dev and /a/devices.
5. Remove /a/etc/path_to_inst
6. Halt the system, and reboot with -ravs (rebuild, ask, verbose,
    single-user) kernel flags. Hit return for everything EXCEPT when it
    asks to recreate /etc/path_to_inst (answer y).

I certainly wouldn't guarantee this working every time (hence the need
for a backup), but it worked for me (so far!).

I guess Sun don't support moving disks between machine types without
reinstalling Solaris!

Thanks to everyone who replied to my original query.


Chris.