Hi folks,
So, I just reinstalled my Dell D400 with the new nv27 community express
release, and again I'm hitting weird problems with "format". (I'm the unlucky
[b]ata_disk_iosetup[/b] poster from a few days back).
Firstly, I try to run format from within the OS, to add a slice that I can then
turn into a ZFS pool. I only have one disk, as it's a laptop, but I'd like to
try snapshots, etc. But things turn a bit weird... on another machine that is
installed with nv24, I get as an available disk selection:
[b]0. c0d0 <DEFAULT cyl 20413 alt 2 hd 32 sec 63>[/b]
But on the D400, now that it's installed under nv27, format just displays:
[b]0. c1d0 <drive type unknown>[/b]
I certainly used to get a sensible geometry when this D400 was running nv24.
So, I specify disk 0. And then I am told:
[b]/dev/dsk/c1d0s0 is currently used by swap. Please see swap(1M).
/dev/dsk/c1d0s1 is currently mounted on /. Please see umount(1M).[/b]
Well, if that's just informational, that's fine. I've been carefully running
format on disks with mounted filesystems for years, and never ever creamed a
mounted filesystem. Hope it won't stop me actually writing a label though...
but I haven't had a chance to check that yet, becase where next I would have
expected to get the usual menu listing, instead I get:
[b]AVAILABLE DRIVE TYPES:
0. other
Specify disk type (enter its number): 0
Enter number of data cylinders:[/b] ^C
So as you can see, I give up at this point. Don't know the geometry of my
Solaris fdisk partition off the top of my head (funny, that), so I try a reboot
into the failsafe image, in case having no mounted filesystems makes things
better. Nice try; when format first displays the list of available disks, the
disk still has no geometry associated with it, and then when I select disk 0,
format gives an error message I've never seen before:
[b]Error occurred with device in use checking: Permission denied[/b]
followed by the same questions about the drive geometry that I quoted just
above.
Okay, let's... try... something... else... [said through gritted teeth]
Boot with NV19 installation CD. Select single user shell. No more fun to be
had: format still doesn't know about the disk geometry. Great, now I know
it's a problem with the disk label itself: the disk was re-fdisk'd and the
slices laid out again during the NV27 install process. [it was the graphical
install, in case that provides any clues].
I'm a bit puzzled, because all this stuff [i]just used to work[/i] in previous
builds that I've messed around with. The disk label written by the
installation process had some sensible geometry in it, and apart from my
recently seen wacky errors from the [b]ata[/b] driver, there were no surprises
running format.
I think I can find a workaround for all this crap, namely to boot using an old
Solaris installation CD, fdisk and format from that, then re-install NV27; but
I think that these problems, if reproducible, will be a bit of a showstopper
for any newcomers to Solaris. I've never had to enter geometry info for any
other disk label prepared in any of the other Solaris 10 builds I've installed,
including NV24 on the same laptop.
puzzled,
Jason =:^/
This message posted from opensolaris.org
_______________________________________________
opensolaris-help mailing list
[email protected]
