UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

Well you've already successfully booted into single user from this hard disk so you might as well try going multi-user with CTRL-D

OK I put run level 3 and

Code:

Cannot access /var/adm/utmpx, remaining in single user mode

and then back to the

Code:

ctrl-d to proceed with normal...

Is /var a separate filesystem? Have you allocated the slice, newfs'd and restored it? Have you modified /etc/vfstab with the right device node to point to it?

If you boot into single user:

Code:

ok> boot -sw

and give the root password to get to a # prompt, can you then manually mount /dev/dsk/c?t?d?s? on /var? Does it work or does it complain?

If it works, take a look in /var/adm to see if the file is there.

Or have you restored the /var contents into /var on the root filesystem with the vfstab mounting over the top and hiding the files????

Repeat, is /var a separate filesystem or not?

Double check your entries in /etc/vfstab (/a/etc/vfstab when mounted on the DVD) to ensure that the devices you have set for root (/), /usr, and /var (if separate) point to the slices that you restored them to.

An incorrect setting for root (/) could be causing this.

You have one of two scenarios.

The /var is either (a) a separate filesystem (which you will have dumped separately from the original system), or (b) it is not separate and is therefore included in the root filesystem.

If it is (a) then when you boot from DVD and mount your hard disk root filesystem under /a, when you look in /a/var it will be empty since the other /var slice will be mounted here. Also, in this case, there will be an entry in /a/etc/vfstab to mount this other slice under /var at boot time.

If it is (b) then when you boot from DVD and mount your hard disk root filesystem under /a, when you look in /a/var the normal files will be in there. Also, there will be no entry in /a/etc/vfstab to mount anything on /var.

If you have checked everything is in order for (a) or (b) and the system still won't boot correctly, then recreate the device nodes for all disks using 'devfsadm' as described previously.

Good Morning..

Good news- its starting to look like something! It lets me log in as root.

Yes,

Code:

/usr

is its own slice. Never did anything with it so I formatted and restored it.

Amended

Code:

vfstab

for that slice.

Booted without reconfigure switch.

Its coming up with

Code:

Cannot start X-Server

and driver error, which I expected.

Next, I intend to:

1. Install the driver for that card.
2. Format and restore the other slices.

Sound about right?

That's looking better. Well done!

Don't forget the obvious that, at some point, you should backup this system as a separate entity to protect all the changes you've made. You don't want to have to start again.

Also, you'll need to change the node name if it's going to sit on the same subnet as the original, and configure the network interface (for real this time). Is the network interface card the same as the original? e.g. bge0 or whatever?

But, yes, you can create slices and ufsrestore the other filesystems one at a time remembering to keep vfstab up to date so that the system can find them at boot time.