I'm hoping to be able to switch an existing VirtualBox vdi from IDE to SATA (for the likely performance boost). But the existing boot archive can't handle that, since it only knows about root being on the IDE.
I have no clear idea at the moment how I could remedy that. I _think_ that if failsafe mode were available (which it isn't, at least not for OpenSolaris), it would be more or less straightforward, if I could figure out all the files to tweak, and then rebuild the boot archive. But without failsafe mode, my next best shot would be a CD running a compatible version. Maybe I can use the snv_98 iso, from which the vdi was upgraded to snv_105? I haven't updated the zpool to the latest format, so maybe I could still import it and mount it? Any idea what files I'd have to tweak to change the boot device while using the same image? On SPARC and UFS, I could probably have pulled off that sort of thing (before boot archives came along, anyway). But anymore, I have no clear idea what would be involved. Well, actually I _do_ have one other idea. I could create another empty vdi of the same size (but on the virtual SATA), attach it as a mirror to the existing zpool, wait for it to sync up, drop the original mirror, run installboot (maybe?), and rebuild the boot archive. Slower, but would that work at least? -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
