cannot partition HP 73GB disks

[Anton Shterenlikht]

On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 09:51:25PM +0100, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 09:17:33PM +0100, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> > Trying to install FBSD 8.0-snapshot 200906 on 73GB HP scsi disks:
> > 
> > da0 at mpt0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
> > da0: <HP 73.4G ST373454LC HPC2> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-3 device
> > da0: 320.000MB/s transfers (160.000MHz, offset 63, 16bit)
> > da0: Command Queueing Enabled
> > da0: 70007MB (143374738 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 8924C)
> > da1 at mpt0 bus 0 target 1 lun 0
> > da1: <HP 73.4G ST373454LC HPC2> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-3 device
> > da1: 320.000MB/s transfers (160.000MHz, offset 63, 16bit)
> > da1: Command Queueing Enabled
> > da1: 70007MB (143374738 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 8924C)
> > 
> > 
> > and partition name appears only as "X" in disklabel editor: 
> > 
> > 
> >                          FreeBSD Disklabel Editor
> > 
> > Disk: da0               Free: 0 blocks (0MB)
> > 
> > Part      Mount          Size Newfs   Part      Mount          Size Newfs
> > ----      -----          ---- -----   ----      -----          ---- -----
> > X         /efi          100MB EFI   Y
> > X         /             512MB UFS2   Y
> > X         swap         4055MB SWAP
> > X         /var         3051MB UFS2+S Y
> > X         /tmp          512MB UFS2+S Y
> > X         /usr        61776MB UFS2+S Y
> > 
> > 
> > automatic or manual - doesn't matter, all partitions are named X,
> > and the installation fails with "cannot create partition /dev/X" or
> > similar.
> > 
> > With some seagate 17GB disks works fine.
> > 
> > Please advise
> 
> This thread mentiones a somewhat similar problem
> - the installation program cannot "write data to
> disk" in 5.2 and 6.1. It's on zx6000 itanium,
> which is very similar to my rx2600, and again
> 73GB scsi disks are used:
> 
> http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ia64/2006-December/001191.html
> 
> no solution was found then.

Using livefs cd I was able to gpart one disk. Then booting from the
installation disk1 I can set:

                         FreeBSD Disklabel Editor

Disk: da0               Free: 0 blocks (0MB)

Part      Mount          Size Newfs   Part      Mount          Size Newfs
----      -----          ---- -----   ----      -----          ---- -----
da0p1     /efi          400MB EFI   N
da0p2     /             512MB UFS2   N
da0p3     swap         2048MB SWAP
da0p4     /var         1024MB UFS2+S N
da0p5     /tmp         1024MB UFS2+S N
da0p6     /usr        64999MB UFS2+S N


However, when the installaiton starts I get several warnings, something
about fsck returning error 8 on checking root partition, and then this
error:

Error mounting /dev/da0p2 on /mnt : Invalid argument 

-- 
Anton Shterenlikht
Room 2.6, Queen's Building
Mech Eng Dept
Bristol University
University Walk, Bristol BS8 1TR, UK
Tel: +44 (0)117 928 8233 
Fax: +44 (0)117 929 4423