System Administration Guide, Volume 1

IA: How to Connect a Secondary Disk and Boot

  1. Become superuser.

  2. If the disk is unsupported by the Solaris software, add the device driver for the disk by following the instructions included with the hardware.

  3. Create the /reconfigure file that will be read when the system is booted.


    # touch /reconfigure
    

    The /reconfigure file will cause the SunOS software to check for the presence of any newly installed peripheral devices when you power on or boot your system later.

  4. Shut down the system.


    # shutdown -i0 -g30 -y
    

    -i0

    Brings the system down to init state 0 (zero), the power-down state. 

    -gn

    Notifies logged-in users that they have n seconds before the system begins to shut down.

    -y

    Specifies the command should run without user intervention. 

    The Type any key to reboot prompt is displayed.

  5. Turn off power to the system and all external peripheral devices.

  6. Make sure the disk you are adding has a different target number than the other devices on the system.

    You will often find a small switch located at the back of the disk for this purpose.

  7. Connect the disk to the system and check the physical connections.

    Refer to the disk's hardware installation guide for installation details. Also, refer to the Solaris 8 (Intel Platform Edition) Device Configuration Guide for hardware configuration requirements specific to the disk.

  8. Turn on the power to all external peripherals.

  9. Turn on the power to the system.

    The system will boot and display the login prompt.

IA: Where to Go From Here

After you boot the system, you can create slices and a disk label on the disk. Go to "IA: How to Create Disk Slices and Label a Disk".