Creating a System Disk From the PROM Monitor

Creating a System Disk From the PROM Monitor

This section describes how to install a system disk on a system that does not currently have a working system disk. It is used in these situations:

The new disk has no formatting or partitioning information on it at all or the partitioning is incorrect.
It is an option disk that you must turn into a system disk.

If the system already has a working disk, you can use the procedure in the section "Creating a New System Disk From IRIX" in this chapter instead.

To turn a disk into a system disk, you must have an IRIX system software release CD available and a CD-ROM drive attached to the system or available on the network. If you are using a CD-ROM drive attached to a system on the network, that system must be set up as an installation server. See the IRIX Admin: Software Installation and Licensing guide for instructions.

These instructions assume that the system disk is installed on controller 0 at drive address 1. This is the standard location for workstations; the controller number is system-specific on servers. Follow these steps:

Bring the system up into the System Maintenance Menu.
Bring up the Command Monitor by choosing the fifth item on the System Maintenance Menu.
Give the hinv command and use the CPU type and Table 2-1 to determine the version of standalone fx that you need to invoke. For example, a system with an IP19 processor is an ARCS processor, so the version of standalone fx needed is stand/fx.ARCS.
Determine the controller and drive address of the device that contains the copy of fx that you plan to use (a CD-ROM drive attached to the system or a CD-ROM drive on a workstation on the network). For example, for a local CD-ROM drive, if hinv reports that the CD-ROM drive on the system is scsi(0), cdrom(4), the controller is 0 and the drive address is 4. The remainder of this example uses that device, although your device may be different or may be located on a different workstation.
If you are installing over a network connection, get the IP address of the workstation with the CD-ROM drive.
Insert the CD containing the IRIX system software release into the CD-ROM drive.
Give a Command Monitor command to boot fx. For this example the command is:

>> boot -f dksc(0,4,8)sashARCS dksc(0,4,7)stand/fx.ARCS --x 
72912+9440+3024+331696+23768d+3644+5808 entry: 0x89f9a950
112784+28720+19296+2817088+59600d+7076+10944 entry: 0x89cd74d0
SGI Version 5.3 ARCS   Oct 18, 1994

See Appendix A of the guide IRIX Admin: Software Installation and Licensing for a complete listing of appropriate commands to boot fx from CD-ROM on this or another workstation.

Respond to the prompts by pressing the <Enter> key. These responses select the system disk:

fx: "device-name" = (dksc) 
fx: ctlr# = (0) <Enter>
fx: drive# = (1) <Enter>
...opening dksc(0,1,)
...controller test...OK
Scsi drive type == SGI     SEAGATE ST31200N8640

----- please choose one (? for help, .. to quit this menu)-----
[exi]t             [d]ebug/           [l]abel/           [a]uto
[b]adblock/        [exe]rcise/        [r]epartition/     [f]ormat

Display the partitioning of the disk by giving the repartition command:

fx> repartition

----- partitions-----
part  type       cyls             blocks          Megabytes   (base+size)
  7: efs        4 + 2722       3048 + 2074164       1 + 1013 
  8: volhdr     0 + 4             0 + 3048          0 + 1    
 10: volume     0 + 2726          0 + 2077212       0 + 1014 

capacity is 2077833 blocks

Check the partition layout to see if the disk needs repartitioning. See the section "System Disks, Option Disks, and Partition Layouts" in Chapter 1 for information about standard partition layouts.

If the disk doesn't need repartitioning, skip to step 13.
Choose a disk partition layout. You can choose a standard system disk partition layout (described in the section "System Disks, Option Disks, and Partition Layouts" in Chapter 1) or a custom partition layout.
If you choose a standard system disk partition layout, follow the directions in the section "Creating Standard Partition Layouts" in this chapter. If you choose a custom partition layout, follow the instructions in the section "Creating Custom Partition Layouts" in this chapter.

In preparation for a future step, check the contents of the volume header by giving this command:

----- please choose one (? for help, .. to quit this menu)-----
[ro]otdrive           [o]ptiondrive         [e]xpert
[u]srrootdrive        [re]size
fx/repartition> label/show/directory

 0: sgilabel   block    3 size     512  2: sash       block 1914 size  159232
 1: ide        block    4 size  977920

Verify that the volume header contains sash, a required file (it is listed as item 2 in this example).

Quit fx and the Command Monitor so that you return to the System Maintenance Menu:

----- please choose one (? for help, .. to quit this menu)-----
[para]meters       [part]itions       [b]ootinfo         [a]ll
[g]eometry         [s]giinfo          [d]irectory
fx/label/show> ../../exit
>> exit

Choose the second option, "Install System Software," from the System Maintenance Menu.
Because there is no filesystem on the root partition, error messages may appear. One example is the following message:

Mounting file systems:

/dev/dsk/dks0d1s0: Invalid argument
No valid file system found on: /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0
This is your system disk: without it we have nothing
on which to install software.

Another possible message indicates a problem, but does mount the root partition and bring up inst:

Mounting file systems:

mount: /root/dev/usr on /root/usr: No such file or directory
mount: giving up on:
   /root/usr

Unable to mount all local efs, xfs file systems under /root
Copy of above errors left in /root/etc/fscklogs/miniroot

    /dev/miniroot            on  /
    /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0        on  /root

Invoking software installation.

If the system offers to make a filesystem, answer yes to the prompts:

Make new file system on /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0 [yes/no/sh/help]: yes

About to remake (mkfs) file system on: /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0
This will destroy all data on disk partition: /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0.

        Are you sure? [y/n] (n): yes

        Do you want an EFS or an XFS filesystem? [efs/xfs]: xfs

        Block size of filesystem 512 or 4096 bytes? 4096

Doing: mkfs -b size=512 /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0
meta-data=/dev/rdsk/dks0d1s0     isize=256    agcount=8, agsize=248166 blks
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=248165
log      =internal log           bsize=512    blocks=1000
realtime =none                   bsize=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
Mounting file systems:

NOTICE: Start mounting filesystem: /root
NOTICE: Ending clean XFS mount for filesystem: /root
    /dev/miniroot            on  /
    /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0        on  /root

If the system offers to put you into a shell, go into the shell and manually make the Root and, if appropriate, the Usr filesystem. For example:

Please manually correct your configuration and try again.

        Press Enter to invoke C Shell csh: <Enter>

# mkfs /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0 
meta-data=/dev/dsk/dks0d1s0      isize=256    agcount=8, agsize=31021 blks
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=248165
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=1000
realtime =none                   bsize=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
# exit

If the inst main menu comes up and you did not make a Root filesystem in step 16 or step 17, make the Root and, if used, the Usr filesystems, and mount them. For example:

Inst> admin
...
Admin> mkfs /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0

Make new file system on /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0 [yes/no/sh/help]: yes

About to remake (mkfs) file system on: /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0
This will destroy all data on disk partition: /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0.

        Are you sure? [y/n] (n): yes

        Do you want an EFS or an XFS filesystem? [efs/xfs]: xfs

        Block size of filesystem 512 or 4096 bytes? 4096

Doing: mkfs -b size=512 /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0
meta-data=/dev/rdsk/dks0d1s0     isize=256    agcount=8, agsize=248166 blks
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=248165
log      =internal log           bsize=512    blocks=1000
realtime =none                   bsize=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
Mounting file systems:

NOTICE: Start mounting filesystem: /root
NOTICE: Ending clean XFS mount for filesystem: /root
    /dev/miniroot            on  /
    /dev/dsk/dks0d1s0        on  /root


Re-initializing installation history database
Reading installation history .. 100% Done.
Checking dependencies .. 100% Done.

Admin> return

Install IRIX software from the CD as usual.
Install option software and patches from other CDs, if desired.
If you don't need to modify the volume header to add sash (see step 13), you have finished creating the new system disk. You don't need to do the remaining steps in this procedure.
In preparation for adding programs to the volume header of the disk, start a shell:
Inst> sh
Follow the instructions in the procedure in the section "Adding Files to the Volume Header With dvhtool" in this chapter to add sash, if necessary, to the volume header of the system disk. Remember that the /stand directory is mounted at /root/stand.
Exit from the shell:
# exit
Quit inst and bring the system up as usual.
Inst> quit