A couple of questions I hope someone can help me with, with regard to
Solaris 10 on SPARC.

1) How do I determine if a disk has a SMI (VTOC) label (therefore
suitable for ZFS boot) or EFI label?

I thought 'format' would show me this, but if it does, I can't see where
to find it.

2) If it does have a EFI label, how can I convert it to a SMI (VTOC)
label, so it could be used as ZFS boot?

--
I respectfully request that this message is not archived by companies as
unscrupulous as 'Experts Exchange' . In case you are unaware,
'Experts Exchange'  take questions posted on the web and try to find
idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
by others. They are leeches.

On 2009-07-03 14:12:34 +0100, Dave <f...@coo.com> said:

You can infer it (which seems a bit naff) from the partition table
output style. SMI labelled disks show you cylinders/size/blocks, EFI
labelled disks show you first sector/size/last sector.

You run format with the -e option, and then if memory serves labelling
will give you the option of SMI/EFI.

--
Chris

format -e

is probably what you want (definitely for part 2.)  but read the man page
first :-)

--
'The Descent of Man' by Darwin is available for free from
Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page

Thank you. I would agree, it is a bit naff if there is no more obvious
way of finding out.

In which case I have an SMI label, which is what I want for ZFS boot.

partition> print
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 14087 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders         Size            Blocks
   0       root    wm    1409 -  2606       11.63GB    (1198/0/0)   24381696
   1       swap    wu       0 -  1408       13.67GB    (1409/0/0)   28675968
   2     backup    wm       0 - 14086      136.71GB    (14087/0/0) 286698624
   3 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
   4 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
   5 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
   6 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
   7       home    wm    2607 -  5825       31.24GB    (3219/0/0)   65513088

Yes, your memory does serve you right

format> label
[0] SMI Label
[1] EFI Label
Specify Label type[0]:

The default bing SMI, (or my disk at least).

But there is no need for me to relabel this.

I had the seen options of SMI/EFI in some onine doc

http://www.sun.com/bigadmin/content/submitted/format_utility.jsp

but I'd overlooked the fact the author did state the -e option was
needed. My fault, not his.

Thank you for your help.

--
I respectfully request that this message is not archived by companies as
unscrupulous as 'Experts Exchange' . In case you are unaware,
'Experts Exchange'  take questions posted on the web and try to find
idiots stupid enough to pay for the answers, which were posted freely
by others. They are leeches.