Solaris 10 install with no DVD drive

Hi Guys,

I think i probably know the answer to this question, but ill put it out there.

I have access to one, and only one SunFire v240 with no DVD drive. I have been tasked with installing Solaris 10 on there (Solaris 8 is on at the moment).

The obvious thing was to try a USB DVD drive, but as the OBP version is 4.11, USB booting is not supported.

I have a spare CD drive, but i dont belive there are any solaris 10 install CD's any more.

I dont have access to another server to try a network boot (well i do but they are production and on a different subnet).

Does anyne have any flashes of genius on alternatives? Or am i going to have to jumpstart it?

Thanks in advance

Sol-nova

Hi Sol-nova
liveupgrade is also another way but you need the installation-source (nfs/iso/cdrom).
Or try to attach a external hd with the solaris 10 iso image on it!

cheers
beta17

well, there are external scsi cdroms.. there's not much difference between external and internal scsi so it should boot

why would you need server for network boot. any computer/notebook should do?

edit: oh, I see, no Solaris10 on cdrom version. but, iirc, there was x86 version 10 cdrom .iso on sun download page. perhaps you could 'slim' down the DVD so that it contains only essential packages. do the minimal install, and proceed from hdd?

Yeah easy route for me was to bring in a DVD-ROM drive from home.

Has this been successfull using an external CD/DVD-ROM? I'm having a similar situation trying to install Solaris 9 on a SunFire V210 with no OS pre-installed. Trying to find out how to prepare a pc as an install server, but haven't figured that out yet. I need to know what it takes to use a x86 machine with Sparc media to install to a Sparc machine. Most everything i read wanted an existing SPARC server to dump the media images to pc, or either have a Sparc machine with OS preinstalled...
Would OBP 4.22 support a USB DVD-ROM boot method by the way?
I do have the 3 CD package of the installation media.
Thanks!

---------- Post updated 09-10-11 at 07:06 PM ---------- Previous update was 09-09-11 at 10:58 PM ----------

Okie dokie! An update: after some googling i found out that closing JP5 (atapi master/slave) i could use two different "generic" slimline DVD ROMs. One's a Toshiba, and the other is a TEAC. Both were recognized at startup, and would boot the Solaris 9.05 installation media. I hope this comes handy to other fellas..