<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
</head>
<body>
<p>Thanks to all who replied with suggestions. </p>
<p>Following what Mouse suggested, I recreated the partition table
and then manually created an FS on each slice and checked the
table again, before proceeding to the next and repeat. I fully
expected things to go wrong at g or h \u2014 and more likely, the
latter \u2014 but this time it didn't.</p>
<p>The only difference here was manually running newfs vs.
suninstaller doing this.</p>
<p>So this time I selected Custom rather than Quick install, and
opted to leave data (filesystems) intact. And I was able to
proceed to installing the system.</p>
<p>Hence it's not clear to me what the issue was. The suninstaller
looked to run newfs just like I did \u2014 e.g. rather than mkfs \u2014 but
in doing so it appeared to repeatedly trash the partition table.
I am now kind of half expecting corruption at some point when
writing to g/h, so maybe I should dd a bunch of large files just
to make sure.</p>
<p>Andrew</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 24/01/2026 20:47, Todd Vernon via
rescue wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:188d2765-e41d-4a0c-b8d3-b8337236f5ae@Spark">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
<title></title>
<div name="messageBodySection">
<div>If you really get stuck you\u2019re welcome to grab one of my
existing images and use it, or at least install over the
existing partitions.</div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="https://www.oldsilicon.com/workstationdiskimages"
moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://www.oldsilicon.com/workstationdiskimages</a></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Good luck !</div>
<div> </div>
<div>T</div>
</div>
<div name="messageSignatureSection"><br>
<div
style="color: rgb(32, 33, 36); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; margin-top: 7px"><font
style="font-size: 14px;">---</font></div>
<div
style="color: rgb(32, 33, 36); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; margin-top: 7px; font-weight: bold"><font
style="font-size: 16px;">Todd Vernon</font></div>
<div
style="color: rgb(32, 33, 36); font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial; margin-top: 7px"><font
style="font-size: 14px; font-weight: normal">Entrepreneur |
Investor</font></div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-size:14px; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial;margin-top: 7px; color: rgb(80, 0, 80);">Email:
<a href="mailto:todd@toddvernon.com" target="_blank"
moz-do-not-send="true"><font style="font-size: 14px;">todd@toddvernon.com</font></a></div>
<div
style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-size:14px; orphans: 2; widows: 2; text-decoration-thickness: initial;margin-top: 7px; color: rgb(80, 0, 80);">LinkedIn:
<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/toddvernon/"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true"><font
style="font-size: 14px;">toddvernon</font></a></div>
</div>
<div name="messageReplySection">On Jan 24, 2026 at 11:05\u202fAM -0700,
vom513 via rescue <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:rescue@sunhelp.org"><rescue@sunhelp.org></a>,
wrote:<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I usually run NetBSD and it fabricates
geometry and generally \u201cjust works\u201d.<br>
<br>
When I do run any Sun OS on my machines, I follow this guide
in terms of sizing and disk formatting:<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://learn.adafruit.com/build-your-own-sparc-with-qemu-and-solaris?view=all#create-a-disk-image">https://learn.adafruit.com/build-your-own-sparc-with-qemu-and-solaris?view=all#create-a-disk-image</a><br>
<br>
This will get you a 9.1G image. The size should be 9663676416
(dd from /dev/zero to make a blank image for the ZS). Then in
format:<br>
<br>
(Your output might vary depending on the version of SunOS /
Solaris you are using. For example the first option of \u201c0\u201d - I
think I instead choose 16 \u201cother\u201d.)<br>
<br>
Specify disk (enter its number): 0<br>
Specify disk type (enter its number): 16<br>
Enter number of data cylinders: 16381<br>
...defaults are fine here...<br>
Enter number of heads: 16<br>
...<br>
Enter number of data sectors/track: 63<br>
...<br>
Enter disk type name (remember quotes): Qemu9G<br>
<br>
After doing this I am always able to install Solaris with no
issues. Also to be clear - using these parameters - I don\u2019t
have any geometry config in zuluscsi.ini.<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
rescue list - <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org">http://sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue_sunhelp.org</a><br>
</blockquote>
</div>
</blockquote>
</body>
</html>