installation difficulties

[scarf]

i have tried installing this SunOS 5.9 at least 20 times on this slow 161 MHz sparcstation 5! now i am turning to the experts! the first time i installed i used the web cd with cds 1 and 2, and used default partitioning options. the install went perfectly but i did not like how my disk was partitioned (it is only 4 GB and i did not even have the space to install gcc properly!). what i would like is one partition for swap and the rest for /. so i have gone thru the installation using the web cd first, and using cd1 first.. several times without success. when i use the web cd and the installation begins, it fails immediately. it says something about the disk not having room for the overlap partition. in this installation there is no place to change the size of the overlap partition. when i start from cd1 i am able to remove the overlap partition/change it's size. however, i have found that this does not help anything. when i start with cd1, the installation will begin regardless of my overlap settings, but it only seems to be installing half of the components, never asking for the 2nd cd. my options indicate that ~1.5 GB will be needed, but when the installation starts it only shows ~600 MB remaining. all right so to recap:
-when starting from web cd and using default partitioning, installation succeeds.
-when starting from the web cd and using custom partitioning, installation fails because no room for overlap partition.
-when starting from cd1, cd2 is never asked for during installation.
so what say you? thanks!

 

[mikeclark]

Try starting the install using software CD1.
The overlap partitian is the whole disk (only used for backup etc) so don't change it or reference it for a filesystem. The other thing is what level of OS are you installing? If you are only installing the basic OS the second Cd is not used.

 

[scarf]

i have tried starting from cd1. when starting from cd1 the overlap partition is already referenced as a filesystem in the table that you can add/remove/change other partitions. i have tried not changing it at all. the installation options that i choose require about 1.5 GB so that definately needs cd2, but the machine just reboots when it is done with cd1.

 

[blainepruitt]

If you can get the machine to bootup check your slice two on your boot disk. It is called your overlap and must not be touched. It contains inode and boot info and your hard drive. You can recreate it by going to slice 2, the mount point is called backup (a.k.a overlap). Set the size to that of the entire disk. This should allow you to do your reinstall.