I was installing an Oracle upgrade on my Solaris 8 box......it got through disk 1 fine, then prompted me to insert disk 2. Only problem was I couldn't get disk 1 out! I tried selecting Eject from the filemanager, and typing "eject" at a command prompt, and all I kept getting was "drive is in use". I finally used a paperclip to get the drive open, but then the OS crashed. Now I have to start again, but I'm afraid the same thing will happen.....does anyone know how this can be avoided? Please copy your response via email! Thanks!

kill the vold and manually eject the cdrom u will get it

Its been sometime since i administrated Sun, but i remember that this could happen and vold had to be killed. After that I deleted som files in /tmp to get it to work again. Cant remember what files though :( restart vold after.

The other responses are correct, you could kill vold (the cdrom/floppy automounter), and manually eject it. However, it is possible you may avoid the situation alltogether. You can't unmount a directory if you are in it. Go ahead try it you'll see. If you are starting the install from a binary (exe) on the cdrom's filesystem (aka you CD'ed into /cdrom at all) , you are "using" the device (hence device in use). Instead of CD'ing into /cdrom/blah/blah/blah/oracleDIR, and running the install script, try staying at / and using the full path to the install script. Ex. (start at root. pwd = /) run /cdrom/blah/blah/oracledir/installscript. This will allow vold to unmount the cdrom when it is done because you aren't in the /cdrom directory causing the "device in use" issue. This commonly happens with install scripts installed from CDROM's which have a 2 disk install. EX. Oracle, Remedy, et al.

The cd was mounted - probably by vold - removing a mounted file system will always crash solaris. mount issues a no eject can command to the CD drive when mounting the cdrom to prevent this... unmount the drive before ejecting the CD.