Trouble creating a disk partition slice (EFI)

selectstar · March 19, 2015, 7:04pm

Hi all,

I am using SPARC Solaris 11.1 with EFI labelled disks.
I am new to ZFS file systems and slightly stuck when trying to create a partition (slice) on one of my LUNs.

EFI labels use sectors and blocks and I am not sure how exactly it works.

From here I can try and create a partition but when I have to enter the Starting Sector, I get confused, as you can see from the below code.

I have tried to understand the sectors and so on, but cannot work out what sector I need to create from.

Any help would be greatly appreciated and/or info on sectors.

root@odb-grumpy:/# format
Searching for disks...done


AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
       0. c2d1 <NETAPP-LUN-820a-40.00GB>
          /virtual-devices@100/channel-devices@200/disk@1
       1. c2d2 <NETAPP-LUN-820a-20.00GB>
          /virtual-devices@100/channel-devices@200/disk@2
       2. c2d3 <NETAPP-LUN-820a-500.00MB>
          /virtual-devices@100/channel-devices@200/disk@3
Specify disk (enter its number): 2
selecting c2d3
[disk formatted]


FORMAT MENU:
        disk       - select a disk
        type       - select (define) a disk type
        partition  - select (define) a partition table
        current    - describe the current disk
        format     - format and analyze the disk
        repair     - repair a defective sector
        label      - write label to the disk
        analyze    - surface analysis
        defect     - defect list management
        backup     - search for backup labels
        verify     - read and display labels
        inquiry    - show disk ID
        volname    - set 8-character volume name
        !<cmd>     - execute <cmd>, then return
        quit
format> p


PARTITION MENU:
        0      - change `0' partition
        1      - change `1' partition
        2      - change `2' partition
        3      - change `3' partition
        4      - change `4' partition
        5      - change `5' partition
        6      - change `6' partition
        select - select a predefined table
        modify - modify a predefined partition table
        name   - name the current table
        print  - display the current table
        label  - write partition map and label to the disk
        !<cmd> - execute <cmd>, then return
        quit
partition> p
Current partition table (original):
Total disk sectors available: 1007549 + 16384 (reserved sectors)

Part      Tag    Flag     First Sector       Size       Last Sector
  0        usr    wm               256    491.86MB        1007582
  1 unassigned    wm                 0         0             0
  2 unassigned    wm                 0         0             0
  3 unassigned    wm                 0         0             0
  4 unassigned    wm                 0         0             0
  5 unassigned    wm                 0         0             0
  6 unassigned    wm                 0         0             0
  8   reserved    wm           1007583      8.00MB        1023966

partition> 1
Part      Tag    Flag     First Sector       Size       Last Sector
  1 unassigned    wm                 0         0             0

Enter partition id tag[usr]:
Enter partition permission flags[wm]:
Enter new starting sector[1007583]:

sun-mik · March 23, 2015, 9:57am

Each slice must not ovewrite other so start sector for a slice should be last sector of previous one + 1
I.g. in your table you can't create slice 1 because first sector should be 1007583
that is already in reserved slice 8

If you don't like how partition table is made, you should modify it (i.g. you should decrease slice 0), but in this case you loss data

hicksd8 · March 26, 2015, 7:00am

Slice 8 is a reserved area at the end of the disk.

I don't see too much wrong with what you are doing except my first questions are:

What hardware is this?
What version of Solaris
The disk is being recognised as a 500MB disk. Emphasis on the "MB"! Is that right????
What type of disk is it? SCSI, SATA, IDE or what? Showing as a NetApp LUN?

If it is right, it's been a long time since I've seen one of those.

---------- Post updated at 11:00 AM ---------- Previous update was at 10:49 AM ----------

Oh, and one more question:

Have you actually written an EFI label to this disk?

(EFI labels occupy 34 sectors (0-33) so the first partition usually starts at sector 34.)
If you haven't written the EFI label you might need to use:

# format -e

expert mode to do that.