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How do I use Solaris to write a Sun disk label on a non-Sun disk?

I have a Sun Blade 1000 I got from ebay without a disk, and a Seagate
ST336704FCV FC disk. In the past I would boot NetBSD or OpenBSD
or put the disk in a NetBSD or OpenBSD system and use that to write
a Sun disk label. But this is the only system I have at home with a
FC disk
interface, and I can't get NetBSD or OpenBSD to boot on this system,
so
I need to use Solaris.


I tried Solaris 8 2/02 and 10 3/05 but format doesn't recognize the
drive.
(I'm booting into single user mode from the Solaris CD.) I have 10
11/06
but DVD only, and the DVD drive isn't working, and don't think a newer
version of Solaris will solve this problem.

The Solaris 10 box I'm on now has several Sun/Seagate ST136403 drives,
which are a bit smaller then the FC disk. I used prtvtoc to get the
parameters
for the SCSI drives and tried them on the FC disk. Format ran for a
while and
then said there was a problem with the disk geometry.

Why does Solaris need to know parameters like the number of sectors/
track
for SCSI and FC disks? On modern drives the number of sectors per
track
vary, and at the SCSI and (I think) FC interface the drive looks like
N blocks
of data, numbered 0 to (N-1), each with 512 bytes of data.

Thanks
Robert

Does probe-scsi see the ST336704FCV from the ok> prompt?

A Sun label should not be needed to see the disk in format unless something
else is going on.
Usually it will simply complain that the drive type is unknown, but still
list it.

A Seagate ST336704FC is listed as a disk compatible with the Sun Blade 1000.
I'm not sure what the extra V stands for on your model.

Trinean

Try sformat, IIRC blastwave has it. I just brought up a 70gig FC drive
that needed reformatting to 512 byte sectors- probably out of some
horrible EMC box. Sun's format couldn't hack it, sformat worked like a
champ. Once sformat has a label on it, regular format will work fine.

Gregm

On Mar 18, 5:58 pm, "Trinean" <trin...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Does probe-scsi see the ST336704FCV from the ok> prompt?
>
> A Sun label should not be needed to see the disk in format unless something
> else is going on.
> Usually it will simply complain that the drive type is unknown, but still
> list it.
>
> A Seagate ST336704FC is listed as a disk compatible with the Sun Blade 1000.
> I'm not sure what the extra V stands for on your model.
>
> Trinean

The V is for Video. It has a large cache, 16 Meg instead of the 4 Meg
on the normal, non "V" model. (I don't know if the extra cache on the
system disk will speed up a single user system, but it was $20.00 on
ebay.)

>Does probe-scsi see the ST336704FCV from the ok> prompt?
Yes, and Solaris creates the /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0sX devices.

Solaris won't install. When it get to the point where it should list
the available disks
it reports there are no disks in the system.

If I do "prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2" I get:

prtvotc: /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2: Unable to read Disk geometry errno = 0x5

WARNING: /pci@8,60000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w210000004cf091567,0
(ssd1):
Corrupt label; wrong magic number

Now when I run format, for the first time since the failed format, the
list of available drive
types includes "0. Auto configure", unless I missed it before.

I still have problems. If I try to write the label I get:
Warning: error writing VTOC.
Write label failed.

Robert

r_dirosario@yahoo.com wrote:
> How do I use Solaris to write a Sun disk label on a non-Sun disk?
>
> I have a Sun Blade 1000 I got from ebay without a disk, and a Seagate
> ST336704FCV FC disk. In the past I would boot NetBSD or OpenBSD
> or put the disk in a NetBSD or OpenBSD system and use that to write
> a Sun disk label. But this is the only system I have at home with a
> FC disk
> interface, and I can't get NetBSD or OpenBSD to boot on this system,
> so
> I need to use Solaris.
>

good.

Have a look at ftp://ftp.cs.toronto.edu/pub/jdd/sun...ers/format.dat
as it gives some details of how to work out the geometry.

--
Chris

> >Does probe-scsi see the ST336704FCV from the ok> prompt?
> Yes, and Solaris creates the /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0sX devices.
>
> Solaris won't install. When it get to the point where it should list
> the available disks
> it reports there are no disks in the system.
>
> If I do "prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2" I get:
>
> prtvotc: /dev/rdsk/c1t1d0s2: Unable to read Disk geometry errno = 0x5
>
> WARNING: /pci@8,60000/SUNW,qlc@4/fp@0,0/ssd@w210000004cf091567,0
> (ssd1):
> Corrupt label; wrong magic number
>
> Now when I run format, for the first time since the failed format, the
> list of available drive
> types includes "0. Auto configure", unless I missed it before.
>
> I still have problems. If I try to write the label I get:
> Warning: error writing VTOC.
> Write label failed.

Do you have a Sun 36.4 GB drive? (this is implied in your original message)
If so you can put in the Sun Blade 1000 along with the ST336704FCV.
Then in format you should see the Sun labeled disk as a choice when you need
to select the type of the non-Sun disk.
You should be able to low-level format it and it will look the same as any
other Sun 36.4 GB drive.

If the only difference for the V is more cache, i.e. cylinders, heads and
sectors are the same, this should work.

Trinean

On 18 Mar 2007 14:13:40 -0700, r_dirosario@yahoo.com
<r_dirosario@yahoo.com> wrote:
> How do I use Solaris to write a Sun disk label on a non-Sun disk?
>
> I have a Sun Blade 1000 I got from ebay without a disk, and a Seagate
> ST336704FCV FC disk. In the past I would boot NetBSD or OpenBSD
> or put the disk in a NetBSD or OpenBSD system and use that to write
> a Sun disk label. But this is the only system I have at home with a
> FC disk
> interface, and I can't get NetBSD or OpenBSD to boot on this system,
> so
> I need to use Solaris.

Try using format -e from a Solaris 10 boot. When you go to label
the disk it will give you the option of either SMI or EFI. Choose
SMI.

Cheers, Liam

"Greg Menke" <gdmnews@toadmail.com> wrote in message
news:m3hcsi810n.fsf@venus.pienet...
>
> Try sformat, IIRC blastwave has it. I just brought up a 70gig FC drive
> that needed reformatting to 512 byte sectors- probably out of some
> horrible EMC box. Sun's format couldn't hack it, sformat worked like a
> champ. Once sformat has a label on it, regular format will work fine.
>
> Gregm
>

I will try this. Thanks for the hint.
I have a bunch of non-recongnizable FC drives from e-bay, 520 byte sectors.
I think they came from AS400's or Hitachi something.
I know it is hard to believe but the EMC stuff probably is more acceptable.

On Mar 20, 7:51 am, Liam Greenwood <l...@nessie.xinqu.net> wrote:
> On 18 Mar 2007 14:13:40 -0700, r_dirosa...@yahoo.com
>
> <r_dirosa...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > How do I use Solaris to write a Sun disk label on a non-Sun disk?
>
> > I have a Sun Blade 1000 I got from ebay without a disk, and a Seagate
> > ST336704FCV FC disk. In the past I would boot NetBSD or OpenBSD
> > or put the disk in a NetBSD or OpenBSD system and use that to write
> > a Sun disk label. But this is the only system I have at home with a
> > FC disk
> > interface, and I can't get NetBSD or OpenBSD to boot on this system,
> > so
> > I need to use Solaris.
>
> Try using format -e from a Solaris 10 boot. When you go to label
> the disk it will give you the option of either SMI or EFI. Choose
> SMI.
>
> Cheers, Liam

> Try using format -e from a Solaris 10 boot. When you go to label
> the disk it will give you the option of either SMI or EFI. Choose
> SMI.
That fixed the problem.
Thanks
Robert

"Gerry Sinkiewicz" <sinkiege@snet.net> wrote in message
news:XwEMh.9410$yW.5919@newssvr11.news.prodigy.net ...
>
> "Greg Menke" <gdmnews@toadmail.com> wrote in message
> news:m3hcsi810n.fsf@venus.pienet...
>>
>> Try sformat, IIRC blastwave has it. I just brought up a 70gig FC drive
>> that needed reformatting to 512 byte sectors- probably out of some
>> horrible EMC box. Sun's format couldn't hack it, sformat worked like a
>> champ. Once sformat has a label on it, regular format will work fine.
>>
>> Gregm
>>
>
> I will try this. Thanks for the hint.
> I have a bunch of non-recongnizable FC drives from e-bay, 520 byte
> sectors.
> I think they came from AS400's or Hitachi something.
> I know it is hard to believe but the EMC stuff probably is more
> acceptable.
>

I found sformat-3.5 and tried to make it on Solaris 10.
Neither /usr/ccs/bin/make nor make install (as root) would work.
It could be me (last time I compiled and made something was in 1995 on a DEC
VAX)
or just Solaris 10 differences the 3.5 version is a bit dated.
Any hints?

Messages follow:

==> MAKING "install" ON SUBDIRECTORY "SRCROOT/patches"
NOTICE: Partial source (SRCROOT/patches) missing
==> MAKING "install" ON SUBDIRECTORY "SRCROOT/conf"
==> MAKING DIRECTORY "../incs/sparc-sunos5-cc/Inull"
==> CONFIGURING RULES "../incs/sparc-sunos5-cc/rules.cnf"
creating cache ./config.cache
checking host system type... sparc-sun-solaris2.10
checking for Cygwin environment... no
checking for mingw32 environment... no
checking for EMX/OS2 environment... no
checking for executable suffix... configure: error: installation or
configuration problem: compiler cannot create executables.
*** Error code 1
The following command caused the error:
echo " ==> CONFIGURING RULES \"../incs/sparc-sunos5-cc/rules.cnf\"";
/bin/rm -f ../incs/sparc-sunos5-cc/rules.cnf; cd ../incs/sparc-sunos5-cc;
CONFIG_NOFAIL=TRUE CC="cc" CFLAGS="-Xa -O " sh ../../conf/configure
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target
`../incs/sparc-sunos5-cc/rules.cnf'
Current working directory
/export/home/oracle/download/sformat/sformat-3.5/conf
*** Error code 1
The following command caused the error:
list="patches conf inc lib libdeflt libscg librscg sformat rscsi man";
\
[ -d TARGETS -a -f TARGETS/15conf ] && \
list=`echo TARGETS/[0-9][0-9]* | sed -e 's;TARGETS/[0-9][0-9];;g'`;\
for DIR in ${list} ; \
do \
( \
echo " ==> MAKING \"install\" ON SUBDIRECTORY \"SRCROOT/$DIR\"";\
if [ -d ./$DIR -a -r ./$DIR/Makefile ] ; then \
cd ./$DIR;/usr/ccs/bin/make XARCH=sun4u-sunos5-cc
DIRNAME=SRCROOT/$DIR install; \
else \
echo "NOTICE: Partial source (SRCROOT/$DIR) missing";\
fi \
); \
done
make: Fatal error: Command failed for target `install'

To me it looks like it does not recognize Solaris10 or perhaps it is the
presence of /usr/ucb in the path?