9.1 won't install - GEOM/GRAID issues

[Mike.]

On 1/2/2013 at 12:11 PM Fbsd8 wrote:

|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
 =============


A follow-up to this issue.

I tried to run the dd commands...

Using the LiveFS disc for FreeBSD 9.1, I got some manner of permission
error, indicating that something would not let the dd commands execute.
 Using the LiveFS disc for FreeBSD 8.3, the dd commands completely
successfully.

After zero-ing out the sectors, I tried to install FreeBSD 9.1, and I
continued to get the RAID problems trying to mount root.

So I punted that drive, and used another drive.   FreeBSD 9.1 installed
without an issue, and it is running fine as I type this.

So there is something about that other disk drive (something that is
not in the last two sectors or the first sector) that the 9.1 install
has issues with.

<shrug>


Thanks for the assist.