[OpenBIOS] Decoding Solaris/SunOS disk identifiers?

[Mark Morgan Lloyd]

Tarl Neustaedter wrote:

> Slices are named with letters in OBP-land, the first slice being "a". If 
> it's UFS, slice "c" is the slice which encompasses the whole disk - 
> usually *not* what you want to boot from. It's normally called "backup".
> 
> In HSFS (CD-rom filesystem), partitions are named the same, but 
> partition "c" isn't special - its just another partition. Back in SunOS 
> days, I recall the boot partition of CDs was "f". These days, Solaris 
> disks are produced with all six partitions pointing to the same disk 
> blocks so we tend to boot from partition ":a".

With emphasis on "these days". I remember struggling to work out which 
partition to use on a Solaris 7 (I think) CD a year or so ago.

-- 
Mark Morgan Lloyd
markMLl .AT. telemetry.co .DOT. uk

[Opinions above are the author's, not those of his employers or colleagues]