On 03/12/2011 09:39 PM, A E [Gmail] wrote:
Hello All,
P.S> Sorry about cross-posting, but you never know who has the answer :)
This might be a stupid question but I'm wondering if someone knows
(and if it's possible) to install debian on a hard drive manually from
a "boot.img" file?
I have a situation like so:
an x86 machine with Solaris 8 preinstalled on it. It's an appliance
from a vendor who's hardened it and/or made it in a way that no matter
what one does it always boots into this customized Solaris 8 OS
automatically starting their software. I added an extra HDD to it, and
would like to install Debian on it. However, no matter what I try, I'm
unable to get it to boot off of the network to pick up the boot.img
file from the TFTP server. RARP, TFTP etc is all setup and I have
successfully installed Debian on a couple of Sparc machines using this
setup. However, even after changing the values of boot-device etc
using 'eeprom', I am unable to get this machine to boot (or try to
boot) from the network. This may be a function of the network cards as
well with the configuration assistant setup to not boot off the
network and maybe the network doesn't get initialized until after the
OS has been initialized. By interrupting the boot process however, I
am able to have it try booting from a CD or another HDD which it does
detect early on in the boot process.
So, the questions were,
a) IS it possible for me to get into the BIOS of the machine to turn
on network boot on this machine? I don't know what this machine is,
it's some custom built chassis with custom everything to create this
appliance.
b) OR, I was thinking that maybe I could partition the 2nd HDD while
in Solaris, install Debian/SILO on it either through boot.img or some
other way and then have it boot from this disk instead into debian and
then install whatever I want to install on it.
The software installed on this machine from the vendor is unsupported
now and that company/vendor has been bought over twice since we bought
this in 2004 and as a result am not able to get any support for it and
am unable to make it work the way I want to so the idea is to install
another OS on it (since these are very powerful machines) and install
whatever I want on it.
Any ideas or help will be appreciated.
Thanks
AE
The following assumes that (at least) the Solaris drive is IDE, not
SATA. If it's SATA, then you need to
find out if there are "master" channels and "slave" channels driving the
hard disks, and proceed as
suggested. You can at least proceed with the Solaris drive
disconnected, but then there may be a
problem getting the system to boot off the Debian drive, unless the MOBO
has "master" and "slave"
SATA channels.
You now have two hard drives. Disconnect the one with the Solaris
system on it. Set drive number 2--
the one you added--as master, and install Debian or whatever you want on
it. (I don't know what SILO
is). Now make the Solaris drive a slave. You should now be able to
boot Debian, and operate on the
Solaris drive.
The only way I can see this not working, is if there is some software on
the motherboard, in a BIOS ROM
that's customized. In that case, you may have to try and determine
whose MOBO it is, and find a
generic ROM for it. The saving grace is that the ROM is almost
certainly a plug-in part. When you have
that information, someone on the list here may be able to help. (Not me,
unfortunately.)
Well, that's what I'd try. Somebody smarter than me may have a better
solution. Good luck!
--doug
--
Blessed are the peacemakers...for they shall be shot at from both sides. --A.
M. Greeley
