Solaris

Why do you want to (re?)install a boot block on that disk?
Wasn't one already there?
What Solaris release are you using?

Hi jlliagre,

I intended to start everything from scratch, including a new harddisk.. So i am not sure if i need to install a boot blk, and if so, where do i install it ? s0, s2, s8.

Regards,
Noob

What is "everything"? What do you want to do with that new hard-disk?

The point I would make is that 'installboot' and 'installgrub' are intelligent commands well aware of what you are trying to do, ie, write out boot sectors. You would use the raw disk device as the argument

Code:

 
 /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s?

Irrespective of whether you use s0, s2 or s8 the commands are not going to write the boot blocks to a slice. They know that it's the physical drive that needs the boot sectors.

Having said that I normally use s2 which represents the whole disk, but to answer your question, I don't think it matters.

This is not to detract from the dialogue that you are having with jlliagre about what you are trying to achieve , which is a good question.

Hope that helps.

Since you've said that you're on a x86 platform do you definitely have
c?t?d?s? addressing? X86 is often c?d?p?

What hardware is it?

Hi Jlliagre,

I am trying to install a new OS in it..
I am just seeing if i could, format the disk, install an OS , which i think will make it a system disk.

So when reading oracle documentation, they mentioned about installing bootblk on system disk, and so here i am.

Actually, under what scenario would bootblk have to be installed ?

Regards,
Noob

---------- Post updated at 09:40 AM ---------- Previous update was at 09:32 AM ----------

Hi hicksd8,

I am on vmware actually.
The disk is actually c1t0d0

Regards,
Noob

Installing Solaris on the new disk should take care of everything, including installing the appropriate boot loader on the suitable slice. Note that since 2006 the boot loader is always Grub with x86.
Grub is composed of several parts, the first one is usually on the beginning of the disk (MBR) but not necessarily, the second one is on the beginning of a slice (stage 2) and the third one is composed of files located on the file system in that slice.

In any case, you shouldn't worry about installing Grub yourself, that will be done under the cover by the installer.

Typical scenarios under which the boot block would need to be manually installed is when someone mirror a boot boot disk or when an OS file system or root pool backup is being restored on a new disk. You doesn't look to be in either of these cases.

By the way, you failed to answer about which Solaris version you are using. The documentation link you posted is about Solaris 10. Why aren't you using Solaris 11?

The latest is Solaris 11.3 which was just released yesterday.