How do i format fibre channal disks? (A6194A)

[shaun phelps]

Hi all

I'm having trouble finding out how to format FC disks, I'm quite new to this and the only way i know of is "mediainit" but also i know this can destroy the FC disks.
I have access to a VA7400 and disk system 2405 running off either a C3000 or K380. The disks I got are 73gb A6194A.

Any help will be great!!

cheers Shaun

[Luk Vandenbussche · Accepted solution]

Hi,

If you know the device file just execute

pvcreate -f /dev/rdsk/cxtydz

Then you can create the volumegroup manually or through sam.

I suppose you know how to create LUNS on your VA7400.

If not let us know what extra info you need

[shaun phelps]

HI

I've connected to the va7400 via the serial port, Do you know what the "fmt" commands does, its says its formatting array but it does it so quickly, so i take it, its only formatting a section of the disk is there a way for that command to format all of the disk?

Going back to your response (which was very quick) will "PVcreate" delete or overwrite all of the data on the disk? also i'm not sure how to add LUNS! As you can tell I am very new to this.

Thanks very much for your time!

shaun

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Hi,

pvcreate -f will erase all the contents of the disk.

If I remember well fmt erases all the data on the VA.

It seems that you haven't configured the VA yet

Check the manuals below to configure it

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/lpg60188/lpg60188.pdf

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00084782/c00084782.pdf

BTW, do you see disk on your os from the VA?

ioscan -fnC disk

[Vincent Fleming]

The VA will format the physical drives all by itself, and only if they need it.

Do not attempt any further formatting.

Just create LUNs with either Command View or via the serial port command-line, and present them to a server.

As suggested above, refer to the documentation - that's what it's there for!

Good luck,

Vince

[Torsten.]

What's the problem? What do you want to do?

If you want to install new disks to the VA7400, just make sure that "auto include" is enabled and insert the disks one by one. The array will re-format the disks from 512 to 520 byte blocks. Once this is finished, the disks are ready for use.

If you want to use disks previously used in a VA7400 now in a *standalone* DS2405, you have to reformat the disks back to 512 byte blocks. Insert them into the jbod and use commandview.

[geeta]

Adding to the scenario above, I am having the same issue..How do I make sure tht auto-include is enabled?

thanx:)

[Torsten.]

Check parameters:

#armdsp -a

...
SUB-SYSTEM SETTINGS

RAID Level:___________________________RAID1+0
Auto Format Drive:____________________On
...
DISK SETTINGS

Auto Include:_________________________On
Auto Rebuild:_________________________On


You may change the values using commandview.