Random shooting here, I'm a total newb in Solarisville, but thinking
of the things I'd check in such a situation --
On 19/11/10, at 7:22, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Jeff and Sarah,
>
> The only OS I can get into now is the Windows OS.
It sounds like somehow the installer failed to set the partition for
Indiana as the active partition (as Jeff and Sarah mentioned).
> I looked in the
> disk management section in Windows. It shows two healthy partitions of
> about 53GB each.
Does it show any free space? Is the total disk size something like
106 GB, or, perhaps, closer to 159 GB?
(In other words, is there a partition that MSWxp isn't seeing?
You should be able to check both of these things with fdisk.
There should be an fdisk command-line tool in your MSWxp ("command
prompt", I think it was).
As I say, I'm not really familiar with Indiana, but there might be an
fdisk command line tool in Indiana, as well, especially since some of
the gnu tools are available. If so, you can probably boot the install
CD and get a shell to bring it up.
fdisk generally indicates the active partition with an asterisk (*).
> Neither partition is labeled. But the active partition shows 100%
> free,
> which makes me think that this
> partition is empty.
MSWxp will tend at times to show partitions it doesn't (want to)
understand as free. May or may not be meaningful.
> The other partition is the FAT32 file system, which I think is the
> Windows OS.
> It is only 58% free.
>
> So, from the disk management view, I'd say the Indiana install failed.
Could be. Might be worth just trying it again, and noting any place
you have questions or get something you didn't expect on the screen.
> The disk panel in the Indiana installer showed that it was going to
> try
> to install to the Solaris 53GB partition.
Which, without looking at the output of fdisk, I could not tell you
whether that would be the apparently empty partition you mention, or
might be yet another partition MSWxp is not seeing.
> I'm not sure how to get to fdisk utility from inside Windows?
First you have to get a command line shell. If my memory serves me,
you'll find it in the Start menu:
[Start]-->[All Programs]-->[Accessories]-->[Command Prompt]
or something like that. You may know it as the DOS shell or DOS
prompt. Type "fdisk /?" to get a look at the options. (You can google
microsoft.com for fdisk if you want to know more. :-/)
gnu has an fdisk tool, and it looks from a quick scan of the web that
opensolaris provides that as well. So you might be able to boot your
install CD, get a shell, and use the fdisk provided there.
(If you have a Fedora Core or Ubuntu live CD sitting around, you
could boot to a session of X and dig around in the System Tools for
parted instead of fdisk.)
> This laptop was factory installed with Windows XP 64-bit. I wonder if
> it's going to refuse to
> let me multiboot the system. In which case, maybe my only option is to
> overwrite everthing
> with Solaris OS, removing the existing Windows?
That's an option I might like, but it shouldn't be necessary.
However, it's worth noting that MSWxxx OSses tend to have slightly
different ideas of disk allocation than others, so dual-booting with
MSWindows can be somewhat fragile, especially if doing a lot of re-
partitioning. Many Linux and BSD installation instructions suggest
(after backing up any important data) letting the MS OS install disk
partition the disk, and doing a fresh install of the MS OS every time
you re-partition the disks. YMMV.
I believe I read something that makes me think that Indiana's format
is enough different from the other OpenSolarises that you _do_ want
the Indiana installer to do the format on the Solaris partition even
if you have formatted for Solaris previously.
If you do try a second install of Indiana, watch for the option to
set the active partition, and make sure you have that option
selected. If you think the active partition might not have been set,
you should be able (as I mentioned) to use the Solaris install tools
to set the active partition by hand, but I think it will require the
command line at this time. Someone else might comment on that, if
there is a need to. (Or you could look up "active partition" on via
google, or on wikipedia.)
(As I mentioned, if you have a recent Linux live CD lying around, the
parted utility is GUI and might be a little easier to use than fdisk.
It'd be nice if Indiana has that on a live CD, but my impression is
that it doesn't.
If you wonder why I'm so vague on Indiana details, I came here
looking for [EMAIL PROTECTED] I found it, and am getting off this
list for the time being. But since no one else seemed to be
commenting before the weekend, I thought I'd comment on my way out.)
--
Joel Rees
(waiting for a 3+GHz ARM processor to come out,
to test Steve's willingness to switch again.)
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