X86-Solaris Quick setup --URGENT

As far as I remember (it's been a long time ago), Solaris x86 comes with a boot loader that allows you to choose your boot partition.
I remember having it co-exist with windows. It should also work with Linux.

What I'm sure works is :

Install Solaris x86.
If it ****s up your boot loader, boot using you linux rescue CD, reinstall lilo.

Then, in your lilo.conf, add :

other=/dev/hda4 (or whatever your solaris partition is in)
        label=solaris
        loader=/boot/chain.b
        unsafe

And rerun lilo.

you need some sort of boot manager to do this
check this out
http://www.osloader.com/download.htm

1. Installing Solaris x86
    - Boot from CD ROM (use provided boot floppy if your PC cannot boot from CD)
    - The installer will allow to use a simple "fdisk" to allocate space ti your Solaris partition
    - The Solaris "boot loader" will be installed in the first cylinder of this partition. Therefore, no additional boot loader is required if the Solaris partition is the active partition

2. Checking system setup (prior to install)
    - Boot from CD ROM using the command
        b -s
       instead of "b" alone. After a while you will be dropped into a single user shell, allowing you to run normal Solaris commands like "fdisk", "prtvtoc", "format" etc.
    - Booting from CD ROM as if you want to install you can open a console window as soon as the graphical environment (X11) has been started. In this window you can do any kind of maintenance you like

Cheers

hi,
 Thank you all for your great help.
I am checking the links. It had all i wanted.

Does any body know how to use grub to load solaris.
Also, Does the partition(solaris) need to reside below 1024 cylinders. I dont have that.
My hd is,
1:- 5g win98(fat32)
2:- 5g winxp(ntfs) (logical in extended p)
3:- 10g backup(fat32)
4:- 5g linux(/boot+/+swap)
5:- 5g Free

Now i want to install solaris in that free space.
Thanks.

hi,
 Now I moved my free space to beginning (after 2g). When i tried to install in the free os, it says, The partition should be non overlapping.

newfs failed..

what should i do? Why is this happening.

Now i have.
c:-2g (primary).
x86boot:-12mb(primary)
solaris:-4g(primary)
extended:- rest.

thanks.

When does "newfs" crash? Did you run the normal install process or did you try to run "newfs" manually?
If possible, open a "Console Window" from the graphical installation screen (use the right mouse button on background to access the menu) and run the following commands:
format < /dev/null              # should display you hard disk(s)
prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2  # display VTOC of disk (use the disk name you just saw from the prior output and appen s2 to it
You may also want to run "fdisk" maunally to display the fdisk table

Could you post the output, please?

Cheers

hello JustUnix,
I didn't do anything. Just default things. I had a blank on 2g-5g. I booted with boot cd downloaded from the sun's site. It gave me three options
1. Use  default. (it destroys all partitions.)
2. partition with fdisk.
3. exit

I chose 2. and create solaris partition. It asked for creating a slice of 512 mb. I said yes. Then it says, newfs failed.
I tried to run cd0_install again.
It said the partitions are overlapping.

What does it mean by overlapping partitions??????

thanks.
 

Two things have to be clarified here:
a) a "partition" in general is part of a hard disk to hold
    some OS's data
b) a "partition" in UNIX lingo (also called "slice" since UNIX
    SVR4) is a part of the whole UNIX area, meaning that the
    Solaris partition (the one you see with fdisk) will be further
    divided into slices (or "partitions" in UNIX lingo) holding
    the different file systems (root-fs, swap, /usr-fs and so forth).
What does Solaris' fdisk display? Could you please post the
things I've just asked for in my former post?
You should have a 2 GB "Solaris Partiton" (from Solaris' fdisk)
in which you must create at least two slices (s0 for / (root) and
s1 for swap). "newfs" will then create the new filesystems in
one (or more) of these slices.

hi,
 It does not display anything it just says new fs fails and drops in shell.
when i rerun cd0_install, it says overlapping partitions.

Thanks JustUNIX,
You hit it in the right place. That was the problem with installation cd.I used cd1 and it worked correctly.

Thanks very much.

I've never used the "Installation CD" -- until I was just keen as to find out what it's all about ;-)

U are in the right place .,/.,Just Install windows first .,please do not touch the other partitions on the disk and after completiting the installation of the first O.S(windows) and restart the system with the CD boot options and then from right now onwards just install the solaris or linux and its a dual boot