9.1 won't install - GEOM/GRAID issues

[Fbsd8]

Michael Powell wrote:
> Mike. wrote:
> [snip]
>> Thanks for the reply.   The disk in question has never been used for
>> RAID, so if there is RAID metadata on the disk, I do not know how it
>> got there.  The disk is (I believe --- it's been a while since I have
>> been inside that box) on a Promise SATA RAID controller, but RAID is
>> not used and has never been used (I have a 3Ware controller for RAID on
>> that box).
>>
>> When things settle down, I'll try to figure out how to sanitize the
>> disk and try to install 9.1 again.
>>
> 
> If somehow some RAID controller ever wrote out metadata to the disk it will 
> be the last sector or two at the very end. Sometimes some GPT partitioning 
> schemes corrupt this too. If some alien form of GPT partitioning or some 
> form of RAID has written anything to this area it will throw an error when 
> GEOM 'tastes' the disk. 
> 
> You can zero both these areas with dd if=/dev/zero plus disk plus some 
> arithmetic. Another way, and I do sometimes when I go to reuse a disk that's 
> been used for a while, is to use the mfr's diagnostic utility. I know the WD 
> diag utility has an option to write 0's to the entire drive. Sometimes I do 
> this and then run the extended diags just to get a 'feel good' factor on the 
> media. Trouble with this is the larger the disk gets the longer it takes. I 
> just like media scans on old disks before I recycle them to a new project.
> 
> -Mike
> 
>

Here is a little script named gpart.nuke that may help you

#! /bin/sh
echo "What disk do you want"
echo "to wipe? For example - da1 :"
read disk
echo "OK, in 10 seconds I will destroy all data on $disk!"
echo "Press CTRL+C to abort!"
sleep 10
diskinfo ${disk} | while read disk sectorsize size sectors other
do
  # Delete MBR and partition table.
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/${disk} bs=${sectorsize} count=1
  # Delete GEOM metadata.
  dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/${disk} bs=${sectorsize} oseek=`expr $sectors 
- 2` count=2
done