# Can you install solaris 10 on an external HD?



## MickyMick (Mar 9, 2007)

Hi all!

As the subject states can I install solaris 10 on an external HD? I read somewhere in the past that it can be done but a I am unsure as to how to go about it. if anyone can point me to some Solaris 10 installation in baby-steps guides on the web please do so!!

I have downloaded the DVD iso from the sun website and burned it to DVD. when i reboot my laptop with the disk inserted it brings up a Grub command prompt. i typed in 'boot cdrom' as instructed by a sun install guide but it brings back a message (if i recall correctly!) about there being nothing loaded on the kernel...which meant nothing too me-i presume i need to do something before i try to install from the DVD although it's not mentioned in Sun's guide, Hence i need baby-step guides!

thanks in advance,
MR


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

Hi, these are the instructions I followed:

http://www.sun.com/software/solaris/howtoguides/installationhowto.jsp

To summarize, you must have a free PRIMARY partition on your existing hard drive. You should be able to install it on an external hard drive, as long as your BIOS allows you to boot from that drive.

After solaris boots from the CD, if you dont press any keys, the default Solaris boots, and I choose the default option Solaris Interactive to complete my installation.

Its not the most user friendly of systems and much harder to use and install than linux, so unless you have had unix/linux experience it will be too much for you.


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## hal8000 (Dec 23, 2006)

Also, with solaris, a solaris partition is divided up into slices, a slice is a sub-division within a partition. I'm not good with solaris but the basics are there are 8 slices in a partition,number 0 through 7 and one slice will log the system.
Heres the output of df on Solaris 10, totally different from linux:

# df
/ (/dev/dsk/c0d0s0 ): 3418916 blocks 427288 files
/devices (/devices ): 0 blocks 0 files
/system/contract (ctfs ): 0 blocks 2147483618 files
/proc (proc ): 0 blocks 7899 files
/etc/mnttab (mnttab ): 0 blocks 0 files
/etc/svc/volatile (swap ): 1264952 blocks 120031 files
/system/object (objfs ): 0 blocks 2147483494 files
/lib/libc.so.1 (/usr/lib/libc/libc_hwcap1.so.1): 3418916 blocks 427288 fil es
/dev/fd (fd ): 0 blocks 0 files
/tmp (swap ): 1264952 blocks 120031 files
/var/run (swap ): 1264952 blocks 120031 files
/export/home (/dev/dsk/c0d0s7 ): 5409526 blocks 443506 files
/cdrom/racedriver3 (/vol/dev/dsk/c1t0d0/racedriver3): 0 blocks 0 fi les
/home/anc (/export/home/anc ): 5409526 blocks 443506 files


....and the hard drive becomes /dev/dsk/c0d0p0 where c=controller, d=disk, s=slice p=partition etc


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