Unable to initialize EFI disks under Storage Foundation 5.0 Maintenance Pack 3

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Article ID: 100020768

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Description

Error Message

This issue occurs when trying to initialize EFI labeled disks:

# /etc/vx/bin/vxdisksetup -i myarray0_00a3 format=sliced
VxVM vxedvtoc ERROR V-5-1-0 error writing EFI partitions
VxVM vxedvtoc ERROR V-5-1-11170  Unknown problem reading EFI VTOC

Cause

This issue is caused by an issue involving the Volume Manager scripts vxpartrm and vxpartrmall which are used to remove partitions in preparation for a Volume Manager initialization and how they interact with the Solaris fmthard command.

The scripts work by updating partition information using zero as a value for start and length of the partition to be removed.  The fmthard command will sometimes reject a start value of 0 due to the EFI label's space reservation, causing the partition clean-up to fail and producing the above noted error messages.

Resolution

 
 
The vxpartrm and vxpartrmall commands have been updated to circumvent the issue with fmthard as part of the Rolling Patch 2 and above patch releases for 5.0 MP3.
 
The following workaround can be performed pending the ability to upgrade the system.  This workaround requires that all slices besides slice 8 be removed manually.  Once these partitions are cleared, no attempts will be made by the initialization scripts to call vxpartrm or vxpartrmall and initialization will proceed successfully.
 
Remove ALL partitions from the EFI LUN except for partition 8.

(For this following segment use the device name as found in 'vxdisk list' to replace the tag)

# prtvtoc /dev/vx/rdmp/ | tail -1 > .prtvtoc.new
# cat .prtvtoc.new
8 11 00 3132382 16384 3148765

Only partition 8 should be visible in this output.

# fmthard -s .prtvtoc.new /dev/vx/rdmp/
fmthard: New volume table of contents now in place.

# prtvtoc /dev/vx/rdmp/

Output should now only show partition 8 and no other partitions. If this does not work you will need to manually remove all non-slice 8 partition using format (replace with the CTD address for the device in question).

The disk can now be successfully initialized:
 
# /etc/vx/bin/vxdisksetup -i format=sliced
 
 
 
For patch access please visit the Veritas Operations Readiness Tools:
https://sort.Veritas.com/patch/matrixhttps://sort.Veritas.com/patch 

Applies To

This issue affects the following products running on SunOS:

  • Volume Manager 5.0 Maintenance Pack 3
  • Volume Manager 5.0 Maintenance Pack 3 Rolling Patch 1
  • Volume Manager 5.0 Maintenance Pack 3 Rolling Patch 1 Hotfix 1-6

Issue/Introduction

Unable to initialize EFI disks under Storage Foundation 5.0 Maintenance Pack 3
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