SOLVED: Re: cannot partition HP 73GB disks

[Anton Shterenlikht]

On Mon, Jul 06, 2009 at 11:22:29PM +0100, Anton Shterenlikht wrote:
> 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 

In the partitioning part of the installation program I had to delete
all partitions and create them again. Somehow this time round partition
names were created fine, and the installation then proceeded ok.

It seems all that was needed was
	gpart create -s gpt da0

from the livefs, then the installation cd could be used.

not sure why this happened with 73GB disks and didn't happen with 17GB disks.

-- 
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