For the past 10-15 days i've been trying to install solaris 10 on an old Dell notebook (c600). It has 1Ghz cpu, 384MB RAM, 20GB hard disk and ATI Rage Mobility-128 video chip with 8MB. After the installation of 1st CD when the system boots, either before kdmconfig or after kdmconfig the screen starts to roll with the following errors.
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Apr <date> <time> solaris2 gda: Requested block 8261824, Error Block: 8261824
Apr <date> <time> solaris2 gda: Sense key: uncorrectable data error
Apr <date> <time> solaris2 gda: Vendor 'Gen-ATA' errorcode 0x7
Apr <date> <time> solaris2 gda: WARNING: /pci@0, 0/pci-ide@7, 1/ide@0/cmdk@0, 0 (Disk 0):
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I was only once able to install solaris but i only wanted to have just two partitions / and swap. so i tried to reinstall it and now it wont. Two or three times despite the errors i went ahead with the installation, but after complete install when the pc reboots it just stops after the boot loader giving some error about kernel panic.

I am not an expert of unix or linux, not even an advanced user, but i feel either it has something to do with X configuration or something wrong with paritioning scheme, because during installation when i let solaris auto-layout the partition it shows that it will only make one / partition and one swap. but it goes ahead and makes a third one /export/home. WHY?

(1) Can not i make just one / partition (and swap)? since my notebook will used as a workstation/personal desktop.

(2) ATI Rage Mobility-128 is an old notebook video chip. both Xsun's and Xorg's driver should work. But if i select Xsun and try to use either XF86 driver or Sun's driver for ATI Rage Mobility-128 it will not work. Only when i use generic VESA driver it will work. WHY?

The error message suggests there is something wrong with your disk drive, at the hardware level. Nothing related with X11.