"Gerry Sinkiewicz" <sinkiege@snet.net> writes:

> "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?
>


I suggest you install blastwave and install the binary. sformat
absolutely does work on Solaris, but getting it (and other software) to
compile often requires getting the right gcc and binutils in place. If
you really must install from source, then read the INSTALL/README docs
with great care.

Gregm

"Greg Menke" <gdmnews@toadmail.com> wrote in message
news:m3wt162jmw.fsf@venus.pienet...
> "Gerry Sinkiewicz" <sinkiege@snet.net> writes:
>
>> "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?
>>
>
>
> I suggest you install blastwave and install the binary. sformat
> absolutely does work on Solaris, but getting it (and other software) to
> compile often requires getting the right gcc and binutils in place. If
> you really must install from source, then read the INSTALL/README docs
> with great care.
>
> Gregm
>

Thanks blastwave.org (pkg-get -i schilyutils) works fine. I did not know
about blastwave.org, but now I do.

Gerry Sinkiewicz wrote:
> "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.
>
>

You need a low level format program to change the sector size, which sun
format isn't. For seagate drives, the easiest way to do this is to
download seatools enterprise utilities, stick a fibre card (ie: lp8000
or similar) in a pc, and use it to reformat to the new sector size.

Have done this on several ex emc box fibre drives and it works fine.
Probably similar stuff on the ibm / hitachi website, but haven't looked...

Chris

Gerry Sinkiewicz wrote:
> "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.
>
>

You need a low level format program to change the sector size, which sun
format isn't. For seagate drives, the easiest way to do this is to
download seatools enterprise utilities, stick a fibre card (ie: lp8000
or similar) in a pc, and use it to reformat to the new sector size.

Have done this on several ex emc box fibre drives and it works fine.
Probably similar stuff on the ibm / hitachi website, but haven't looked...

Chris