[indiana-discuss] [install-discuss] OpenSolaris 2008.11 fails to boot on USB disk

[Aubrey Li]

On Wed, Jan 14, 2009 at 12:15 AM, Dave Miner <dminer at opensolaris.org> wrote:
> Aubrey Li wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 5:35 AM, Dave Miner <dminer at opensolaris.org>
>> wrote:
>>>
>>> Sean Liu wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hi there,
>>>>
>>>> Since my SATA controller is not supported by OpenSolaris, I downloaded
>>>> the usb image from genunix and copied to a USB stick, then used the stick to
>>>> install it to a Western Digital USB disk partition. (I installed opensolaris
>>>> 2008.5 to the partition on a dell laptop before and it worked fine BTW)
>>>>
>>>> 1. After the installation, the disk would not boot at all (nothing shows
>>>> on the screen)
>>>> 2. I booted up the stick and installed grub to the disk (with -m
>>>> option), after reboot the screen shows "GRUB" then stops, there is no menu
>>>> at all.
>>>> 3. After reading this message
>>>> https://www.opensolaris.org/jive/message.jspa?messageID=311082 , I did
>>>> following:
>>>> a. zero'ed out the whole partition (s2) with "dd"
>>>> b. reinstalled opensolaris 2008.11
>>>> 4. After reboot, nothing shows on screen again
>>>> 5. Booted into stick, downloaded the grub binary attachment, installed
>>>> the grub ( with -m ), reboot, same sympton as step 2. (Only GRUB on screen,
>>>> nothing else)
>>>>
>>> ...
>>>>
>>>> Any ideas why it can't boot? Any help is appreciated.
>>>>
>>> Take a look at bug 4755:
>>>
>>> http://defect.opensolaris.org/bz/show_bug.cgi?id=4755
>>>
>>> which has some additional possible workarounds.
>>>
>>
>> I run into a similar problem. I installed 0811 into a USB disk, and
>> run the workaround mentioned in
>> http://blogs.sun.com/blogfinger/entry/installing_opensolaris_2008_11_on
>>
>> After reboot, I even can't see the grub screen, there is only a cursor
>> keep ticking.
>> I tried to boot from livecd and installgrub of the both stage1 and
>> stage2 files in the CD again.
>> I also tried to updategrub after import the rpool. But all my effort
>> took no effect.
>> I still can't see the grub screen.
>>
>
> That sounds more like a BIOS problem, honestly.  Are you able to boot other
> operating systems that you install onto this disk?
>
> Dave
>

Yes, debian works properly.
Luckily, I upgraded the system in the USB disk to dev/build105, the system
boots from USB disk. Everything work properly so far.

Thanks,
-Aubrey