[Baphijmm]

First of all, hello! Glad to see someone's trying to create something to replace the fallen Nekochan. I'd been a member over there for many years; truly sad to see it go, or at least disappear.

Second, I'd had a question that someone here might be able to answer:

I recently obtained a 73GB FC-AL drive for use with a Sun Blade 1000 workstation; however, in order to load Solaris onto the drive, I need to be able to format it. As this is the only computer I own with FC-AL capabilities, it's about the only machine on which I can attempt this format. Auto-configure does not work; thus, I require the physical topology --- cylinders, heads, etc. --- in order to format the drive. I've searched the internet, and can't seem to find any such relevant information.

The drive was manufactured specifically for Sun machines by Fujitsu; it's listed as a SUN72G type drive, model MAT3073FC (alternately just MAT3073F), Sun part number 390-0166-02. 10K RPM.

Anybody out there who might be able to help me with this?

[netfreak]

What about some sort of linux live CD that will run on that system, and seeing if it'll have better luck auto detecting that info?

[Baphijmm]

Is there such a Linux distro with a live CD that will boot on SPARC architecture? I cannot find anything, and the Debian SPARC64 distro doesn't seem to want to boot fully / correctly in order to even provide a base install.

[commodorejohn]

I'd try one of the BSDs; their SPARC support is generally pretty solid. OpenBSD in particular I ran on a couple different Ultras back when.

[adso]

Perhaps a silly question, but have you tried the usual SUN72G format: <SUN72G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 424>? Did it work?

[adso]

Perhaps a silly question, but have you tried the usual SUN72G format: <SUN72G cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 424>?

... which is: cyl 14087 alt 2 hd 24 sec 424
(sorry, the forum system ate this from my previous post)

[Baphijmm]

Yeah, I tried that and it threw errors at basically every write attempt until I just killed it. I don't remember what the errors were, but it was literally every single... byte, I guess? It just kept incrementing like 0/0/1, 0/0/2, etc., all the same error. It tried to fix itself but was unable to each time.

I'm out of town right at the moment, but when I get back I'll try the BSD thing.

[escimo]

It's been a while since I fired up my B2k.
I remember the unique WWN for FC disks.
If it's a new disk you don't have to format it, but a label may become necessary.
If it's a used disk, maybe the correct disk label is missing?

What's your disk WWN?

What are the output of...
1. OBP
ok probe-scsi
--> are the disk WWN correct?

2. single user node (install DVD/CD) -- here I don't rmember exactly (use docs for clearance)
format> verify
label exists?
format> type
--> choose SUN72G (if it's a real SUN FW ready disk)
-->otherwise choose correct disk geometry
--> you will be asked for labeling the disk if needed

EDIT: maybe same prob as with this tread?
https://forums.irix.cc/thread-124-post-791.html#pid791

[Baphijmm]

WWN on the drive is 500000E010EFE8C0
WWN from OBP is 500000E010EFE8C1

So... slightly off? Is this a problem? I'm unfamiliar with this number, so I don't know what to make of it.

[Baphijmm]

Posting again for an update:

Thought I'd downloaded OpenBSD before I left; turns out I downloaded FreeBSD. It fails to boot, citing an inability to load the OBP console. Will try OpenBSD tomorrow.

Solaris 9 was actually my first go-to as an alternate means of trying to format this disk, because of the aforementioned post; I'd seen it before, and figured the correct information might just be on that disk. Alas, my copy of it won't boot on that machine either; it boots up normally at first, but when it gets to the Java "Netscape browser" portion of the install, it basically just sits there. I've let it sit literally overnight in the hopes that something might change, but no such luck. It's definitely the SPARC version, and the version I used to load 9 onto my Ultra 1, so it's not a disk problem I don't think.

The Solaris 10 disk does not have the SUN72G option, or else I would have tried it. There is no correct option on the boot disk, meaning the literal only way to get this silly thing to format is to know the topology of the drive.