We had a hardware failure and we cannot seem to boot to our system. Our only option is to restore from our backup. The good thing is that we have foreseen this incident and took the liberty to have a backup of our OS. We will now use ufsrestore to bring our server up and running.

From the man pages of ufsrestore(1M):

The ufsrestore utility restores files from backup media created with the
ufsdump command. ufsrestores's actions are controlled by the key argument. The
key is exactly one function letter (i, r, R , t, or x) and zero or more
function modifiers (letters). The key string contains no SPACE characters.
Function modifier arguments are listed on the command line in the same order
as their corresponding function modifiers appear in the key string.

Boot the machine into cdrom single user-mode:

ok> boot cdrom -s

Re-partition your disk just like the old disk. Then format all the slices using newfs:

root@solaris# newfs /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0

Then mount this to any mount point:

root@solaris# mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /a

Verify the existence of the tape:

root@solaris# mt -f /dev/rmt/0 status
or
root@solaris# mt status

If in case the tape drive is not recognized:

root@solaris# devfsadm -C
or
root@solaris# devfsadm -c tape
or
root@solaris# drvconfig; tapes; devlinks

Rewind the tape:

root@solaris# mt rewind

Make your way to the directory where you want to restore and start the restoration:

root@solaris# cd /a
root@solaris# ufsrestore rvf /dev/rmt/0n

After the restoration, install the bootblk:

root@solaris# cd /a/usr/platform/`uname -i`/lib/fs/ufs/
root@solaris# installboot bootblk /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s0

Then restart and boot your way to your newly restored Solaris OS.

root@solaris# init 0
ok> boot

There you have it fellow SysAdmins! See you on my next note!