Removing a disk from SUN Fire V440 running Solaris 8

UNIX Solaris
1

Hi,

I have a SUN Fire V440 server running Solaris 8. One of the 4 disks do not appear when issued the format command. The "ready to remove" LED is not on either.

Metastat command warns that this disk "Needs maintenace". Can I just shutdown and power off the machine and then insert an identical new disk?

Thanks a lot.

2

Yes that is safe, unless it is the boot disk.
And then there is manual work:
eventually a label is to be installed, the new disk needs to be partitioned, eventually a boot block needs to be installed, a metadb needs to be installed, and each partition needs to be synced.
Please give output of metastat and metadb !

1 Like
3

First of all make sure that you have backed up the data for the disk you are replacing. Then replace the disk. Partition it. Create the metadb. Mirror it. Resync it. Fill the disk with earlier data. Also make the entries in /etc/vfstab.

1 Like
4

Hi, this is not the boot disk, so I guess there is no need for boot block.
Thanks for the information you provided.

---------- Post updated at 08:55 PM ---------- Previous update was at 08:51 PM ----------

Hi, this disk does not appear in the "format" command output and it was a member of a mirror. So the backup is not possible and not necessary I think.

Thanks for the information.

5

Hi, attached is the output of metastat and metadb commands.

6

If the broken disk is hot-swappable, you can pull it online.
But shut down critical services (e.g. a database).

Insert the new disk. Wait a minute for detection and spin-up.

Run format , in order to verify that the disk can be accessed.
Eventually write a label to it (any suggested label works).
Copy the partition table from the other disk,
either in format or with the command

prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2 | fmthard -s - /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s2

They must look identical:

prtvtoc -h /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0s2
prtvtoc -h /dev/rdsk/c1t2d0s2

Create new copies of the state database:

metadb
metadb -d c1t2d0s7
metadb
metadb -a -c 3 c1t2d0s7
metadb

Sync the first partition; metastat suggests a command that must be slightly modified:

metastat d0
metareplace -e d0 c1t2d0s0

Check the progress

metastat d0

Wait until d0 is 100% = Okay.

Repeat with the other partitions.

1 Like