>>> # installboot /usr/mdec/biosboot.sym /dev/rsd0a
>>> installboot: open raw partition RW: Device busy
>> Most emphatically, yes, you should do this in single-user mode.
> The interaction between installboot and the secure mode is a major
> pain in the butt.

What I usually do is to make sure that I have another partition
beginning at the same point as the partition I want to run installboot
on.  For example, if /dev/sd0a begins at offset 10000, I might set the
partition table so that /dev/sd0p also begins at offset 10000 (yes,
sd0p - I've patched both ports I use regularly so as to support 16
partitions per pack).  Then instead of
	installboot ... /dev/rsd0a
I'd use
	installboot ... /dev/rsd0p

Of course, this depends on the fact - true on all the ports I've had
occasion to do this on so far - that installboot writes only the
beginning of the partition, modifying sectors that are never read nor
written by the filesystem during normal operation.

It also depends on running at securelevel 1 instead of 2, and depends
on the writing-live-partition check to not do checks to see what
partitions overlap what others.

					der Mouse

			       mouse@rodents.montreal.qc.ca
		     7D C8 61 52 5D E7 2D 39  4E F1 31 3E E8 B3 27 4B