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I'm trying to install Solaris 10 on an HP ProLiant DL140 to use for testing (we're using an old system so we no one will mind if we accidentally brick it), but I'm running into some problems:

1) The device doesn't have a DVD drive (just a CD-ROM), so I took my Solaris 10 DVD (burned from the iso on the Oracle website) and installed it onto a virtual machine on my Windows 7 laptop, then used that virtual machine to make a bootable USB copy of the DVD (using these excellent instructions: https://blogs.oracle.com/jim/entry/how_to_create_a_usb )...so far so good.

2) I can boot to the Solaris install menu, but as soon as the miniroot is copied into memory, it looks like it shuts down all the USB ports. Neither my USB Pendrive nor mouse will give any indication that they're receiving power, so I can't mount the pendrive as a CD-ROM to continue the install (I've tried mounting everything listed in the "/dev/dsk" directory, with no success).

3) I tried unhooking the CD drive, and plugging in a DVD drive...but the ProLiant does not see the Solaris DVD as bootable. This is the same DVD I used to create the bootable USB, so I don't know why the HP doesn't like it.

4) I tried to get clever by booting from the USB, then directing the install to check the DVD drive...but it insists that the DVD isn't a Solaris CD (technically true, I guesss). If I open and close the drive, it spins up, and the light stays green for about ten minutes. After that, the DVD drive light will not even flicker, and the drive won't even twitch. As far as I can tell, the installer isn't even attempting to read the drive (unless it only does that when the disk is first inserted). When I exit the install menu and check the /cdrom folder, it's empty...so the DVD isn't even mounted. Attempts to manually mount it from the /dev/dsk folder with "mount -o ro /dev/dsk/XXXXXX /cdrom" are equally unsuccessful as when I attempted it with the USB pendrive. No new devices appear to be listed in that folder; it still looks like the two hard drives.

I apologize for the long-winded rambling in this question, but I've been all over the road trying to figure this out. I am extremely inexperienced with all things Linux/Unix/Solaris, so I'm having trouble even framing my questions properly. This is a zero-budget endeavor, so I'm limited to what I can scavenge or legally download for free.

Any advice would be very much appreciated, thanks.

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  • have you tried a USB DVD drive
    – Keltari
    Commented Aug 6, 2013 at 20:13
  • I unfortunately don't have one available, but I'm dubious about it, since the miniboot apparently shuts down the USB ports, so I used an IDE DVD drive. The BIOS detects this drive correctly, so I don't think it's a hardware compatibility issue, but I could easily be very wrong.
    – Liesmith
    Commented Aug 6, 2013 at 20:18

1 Answer 1

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I would select one of these workarounds:

1: (simple way but Solaris won't run on bare metal)

  • Install whatever other OS you are familiar with on the hardware (eg: Linux Mint)
  • Install a virtualization layer (eg: VirtualBox)
  • Install Solaris 10 using the .iso as a virtual DVD

2: (complex)

  • Install Solaris on another machine which has a DVD reader (possibly virtual)
  • Build a jumpstart server on that other machine
  • Install Solaris on your Proliant using PXE boot
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  • Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see about building a jumpstart server on my laptop's virtual machine. The ProLiant has two hard drives, one of which already has an ancient copy of Windows XP on it (I was hoping to install Solaris to the empty drive if I could get that far). Would it be feasible to install a virtual machine on XP, then install from the virtual machine to the empty 2nd hard drive?
    – Liesmith
    Commented Aug 6, 2013 at 20:48
  • XP looks to still be supported by VirtualBox virtualbox.org/wiki/End-user_documentation
    – jlliagre
    Commented Aug 6, 2013 at 21:10
  • Here's the latest update: 1) I tried using a custom Jumpstart, with the virtualbox on my laptop as the server, and the HP ProLiant as the client. I was able to get the two to communicate, but the ProLiant would return "unable to mount image". 2) I tried to cut out the middleman by directly mounting the DVD drive on my laptop to the /cdrom directory on the ProLiant and performing the CD install. I'm able to navigate the DVD successfully on the ProLiant, and the installer will actually spin up and attempt to read the DVD before spitting out: "ERROR: Unable to mount disc."
    – Liesmith
    Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 19:50
  • I tried to mount the DVD as filetypes "hsfs" and "udf", but Solaris doesn't recognize either of those filetypes, and I can't find anyone else on Google who was having a similar problem...any idea why hsfs is considered an invalid filetype?
    – Liesmith
    Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 19:51
  • Sorry for the spam, but it won't let me edit my previous comment, even though I'm within the 5-minute window: EDIT: I just tried the NFS install option, but pointing over the network to the DVD drive on my laptop, instead of the image I made IAW the Jumpstart instructions on the Oracle page. The installer has accepted that, and it's letting me progress. I'll update this question again if I can finish the install this way.
    – Liesmith
    Commented Aug 7, 2013 at 20:00

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