SunFire X2100 fails

[Michael Powell]

Julian Fagir wrote:

> Hello,
> 
> I recently got a SunFire X2100 to play with (first version, not M2).
> Linux (Debian) and 7.2-RELEASE works without problems, just installs
> straight-away and runs fine (currently 31 days uptime).
> But 8.0-RELEASE does not work, neither when being upgraded nor when
> installing from CD or memstick.
> 
> The problem is: The kernel does not recognize the slices and partitions.
> When installing it, the installer shows me a single slice on each of the
> two hard disks though there are more. It also shows a warning about a
> GPT-label, no matter whether there is a GPT or MBR on it.
> After reslicing and -partitioning them, the installer fails when creating
> a filesystem on them, saying the devices (in this case the partitions) are
> not configured.
[snip]

This sounds very familiar to something I just went through. A drive went up 
in smoke and the spare I pulled from the shelf had 6.2 on it. The 8 Release 
install would fail, something to do with either the partition table and/or 
labels from the earlier being invisible to the new and thus could not be 
written to.

Boot a LiveFS CD, then at a root prompt do: 

sysctl kern.geom.debugflags=16  and:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/adx oseek=1 bs=512 count=1 

where x equals your drive number. Probably should only do this before a 
fresh install and NOT on a system with data you want to keep.

The exact error I received whilst trying to install 8 in sysinstall was 
this:

"Unable to find device node for /dev/ad4s1b in /dev! The creation of 
filesystems will be aborted." Then pressing "OK" brings this: "Couldn't make 
filesystems properly. Aborting."

-Mike