Intalling Solaris 8 - ERROR could not label disks? 2

[tommy8]

Hi folks, I can't boot an Ultra 5 from disk, and am therefore trying to re-install Solaris 8 from CD rom. The OK> boot cdrom command starts the boot process. The system is not networked. After time zone information is set, the boot console shows the following:

WARNING: /pci@:if,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/dad@0,0 (dad0)
Uncorrectable data Error: Block 100186

WARNING: /pci@:if,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/dad@0,0 (dad0)
disk not responding

WARNING: /pci@:if,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/dad@0,0 (dad0)
offline


The next popup prompts for geographic region to be set, then software selection, select disk (c0t0d0 boot disk selected, sufficient disk space available), preserve disk, automatically layout file systems etc.

Profile popup is displayed, on beginning install, the following errors apear:
ERROR: "Could not lable disks"
ERROR: "Could not update disks with new configuration"

It then hangs until I right click to go back to ok prompt.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated, I'm a bit out of my depth here being a novice unix user.

 

[bfitzmai]

Tommy8,
Try this...

Boot from cdrom using command: boot cdrom -s
At the prompt enter command: format
Select the disk by entering 0

You will see a warning stating that the disk is not labled and asking you if you want to label it now. Answer - Yes.

You should be good to go.

 

[tommy8]

Thanks Bfitzmai,
gave that a go but after selecting the disk, it said:
disk formatted - no defect list found

I tried format > verify, and apart from Volume name = < > not indicating a name, the partitions etc. looked fine.

format > current showed the following:
Current Disk = c0t0d0
<ST34321A cyl 8892 alt 2 hd 15 sec 63>
/pci@1f,0/pci@1,1/ide@3/dad@0,0

The uncorrectable data error Block 100186 mentioned in my first post presumably points towards the error.

Was about to run analyze > verify but thought I'd best check if that might resolve the problem, or if you had any other recommendations.

Thanks again for the feedback, really appreciate it. Tommy

 

[bfitzmai]

The difference between the Format and Analyze options is the Analyze option only reads the disk for bad blocks... The format command does a write/read... If you have data on the disk, you would use the Analyze option since it is non-destructive... If you can format the disk (no data), I would take that approach... If a defect is found, that block will be marked and no data will be written to it by the OS.

 

[tommy8]

Thanks again Bfitzmai,
I don't seem to be able to format it unfortunately.

format > format
Cannot format this drive. Please use your Manufacturer supplied formatting utility

No info. in the Ultra 5 service manual on disk formatting so I think I'll have to put it in the post to the professionals. Thanks again for your advice.
Best regards,
Tommy

 

[Number18]

I had this problem on a Blade 100 after I had installed linux on it.

Solaris would not reinstall and I was getting the same errors as you, I resolved it by doing the following.

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0 count=1024

HTH
Steve

 

[tommy8]

Steve, you're a genius!

As if by magic, the disk has jumped back to life and found itself again - Solaris is now installing so fingers crossed.

Thank you ever so much.
Tommy