[comp.sys.apollo] null physical volume label : beware in invol !

chytil@vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at (Chytil Georg) (11/29/90)

I've just tried to invol our new 400t's SCSI-Disk w6:0 and after choosing
option 1 (formating virgin physical volume) pressed <RETURN> twice, be it
by accident or through a tossing (word?) keyboard.

Be warned ! While this may happen quite easy it's a proper way to make Your
disk unrecognisable to invol, salvol, mtvol and so on : 'invalid physical
volume label','unable to read badspot list' ... 

Since I fear that our friendly HP-technician will take a time to find out
about a remedy, I wonder if somebody else knows how to 'destuck'. I 
assume that rwvol may offer a chance, but I'm not that daring to invoke it
without some hints.

Now that I'm at it : Are You also experiencing lots of nasties in the 
MD of the 400t ? 'EX'ing a commandfile, e.g. salvol, leaving it and
trying to 'EX' another just barks with strange error-messages in Hex.
Is that why the reset-button is on the front ;-) ?

					Georg

krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (11/30/90)

Try using INVOL's option 7 to recreate a bad-block list. I don't have
any HP 9000's, but if the FBS program is included (find-bad-spot) and
if the version is similar to the latest versions on the SAU7/SAU8/SAU9
machines, then  FBS can rebuild the bad-block list as it tests the
disk drive. Earlier versions of FBS just typed out the numbers of the
bad blocks on the console -- scrolling most of them off the top of the
screen -:(, the newer version I've used is *much* nicer! Be forwarned,
FBS takes *forever*! (after all, it has to write and re-read each block
on the disk with several different data patterns) On my 155 MB DN4000
it runs for 2 to 3 hours per pass, and the time is dependent on the
disk transfer rate and the size of the disk, not on the speed of the CPU.


 -- David Krowitz

krowitz@richter.mit.edu   (18.83.0.109)
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet
(in order of decreasing preference)

out117w@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au (y ng) (12/01/90)

In article <2185@tuvie.UUCP>, chytil@vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at (Chytil Georg) writes:
> I've just tried to invol our new 400t's SCSI-Disk w6:0 and after choosing
> option 1 (formating virgin physical volume) pressed <RETURN> twice, be it
> by accident or through a tossing (word?) keyboard.
> 
> Be warned ! While this may happen quite easy it's a proper way to make Your
> disk unrecognisable to invol, salvol, mtvol and so on : 'invalid physical
> volume label','unable to read badspot list' ... 
> 
We had similar experience when involing an external 660mb storage module 
connected to the  SCSI port on the 400t running SR10.2. We contacted the
local hp response centre and they could not figure out why and suggested
that we need sr10.3 to support this new drive. Unfortunately 10.3 is not
yet available in Australia so we decided to investigate further.
After hours of experimenting with the invol we finally found the way to get 
out of this mess. If you initialise the bad spot list to null you can 
then proceed as usual. I presume SCSI drive manages its bad spot list internally?
As far as the host computer is concerned the drive is bad spot free ??

chytil@vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at (Chytil Georg) (12/01/90)

As has been suggested on the net (Thanks !) reinitializing the badspot-list
makes the drive involable ( sic ! ) again. Boy, am I relieved !!!

A short hint in some invol-description could have saved me a lot of
time and troubles, but it says "a string of Your choice", and according to
Hopcroft/Ullman epsilon is a proper string, isn't it ? ;-)

				Georg

krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) (12/03/90)

I believe you are correct. All the SCSI drives I have encountered
so far manage their own bad spot lists internally. As far as the CPU
was concerned (this is on own DN2500's), the drives are error-free.

If you wish to check this, you can use the FBS (find-bad-spots) program
located in your appropiate sau (stand-alone-utilities) directory (ie.
/sau9/fbs for a DN2500, /sau8/fbs for a DN3000, /sau7/fbs for a DN
3500/4000/4500). This program will read and write all blocks on the
disk with several data patterns looking for errors and will add any
bad-spots it finds to the bad block list. Be forwarned: FBS takes
several hours to run, and since it runs from the MD your machine will
be down for the entire period. There is also a version of FBS in the
/systest/ssr_util directory which will execute with your machine up
and running, checking a disk that has not been mounted. I haven't used
this on-line version, so I can't say whether or not it's any faster
than the off-line version.


 -- David Krowitz

krowitz@richter.mit.edu   (18.83.0.109)
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu
krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet
(in order of decreasing preference)

sboyle@mentor.com (Sean Boyle x1542) (12/29/90)

In article <2185@tuvie.UUCP> chytil@vlsivie.tuwien.ac.at (Chytil Georg) writes:
>I've just tried to invol our new 400t's SCSI-Disk w6:0 and after choosing
>option 1 (formating virgin physical volume) pressed <RETURN> twice, be it
>by accident or through a tossing (word?) keyboard.
>
>Be warned ! While this may happen quite easy it's a proper way to make Your
>disk unrecognisable to invol, salvol, mtvol and so on : 'invalid physical
>volume label','unable to read badspot list' ... 
>
>Since I fear that our friendly HP-technician will take a time to find out
>about a remedy, I wonder if somebody else knows how to 'destuck'. I 
>assume that rwvol may offer a chance, but I'm not that daring to invoke it
>without some hints.

.PP
I suppose you could use rwvol in combination with the debugger, but that's rather involved.  A better choice would be to use /systest/ssr_util/fixvol.
.PP
Once you are in, you can type in 'h' for help, but here is a basic runthrough.
.nf
(fv [p])> r pv
...blah blah blah...
(fv [p])> edit pv
pv> h
-->Legal choices are:
    q           up
    vers        apollo[]    name[]      uid[]       dtype       b_per_vol
    s_per_trk   t_per_cyl   lv_list[]   alv_list[]  bs_daddr    diag_daddr
    sect_st     sect_size   pre_comp    b_per_pvol  boot_daddr  grp_size
    grp_my_n    grp_nums[]  grp_alg     s_per_blk   soft_sect   ver_len
    version[]   cookie      pdaddr
pv> name[]
 (  8) name[0]       ==     ( 0)  : `I
 (  9) name[1]       ==     ( 0)  : `'
 (  A) name[2]       ==     ( 0)  : `m
 (  B) name[3]       ==     ( 0)  : `_
 (  C) name[4]       ==     ( 0)  : `s
 (  D) name[5]       ==     ( 0)  : `o
 (  E) name[6]       ==     ( 0)  : `_
 (  F) name[7]       ==     ( 0)  : `f
 ( 10) name[8]       ==     ( 0)  : `o
 ( 11) name[9]       ==     ( 0)  : `r
 ( 12) name[A]       ==     ( 0)  : `g
 ( 13) name[B]       ==     ( 0)  : `e
 ( 14) name[C]       ==     ( 0)  : `t
 ( 15) name[D]       ==     ( 0)  : `f
 ( 16) name[E]       ==     ( 0)  : `u
 ( 17) name[F]       ==     ( 0)  : `l
 ( 18) name[10]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 19) name[11]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 1A) name[12]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 1B) name[13]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 1C) name[14]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 1D) name[15]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 1E) name[16]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 1F) name[17]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 20) name[18]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 21) name[19]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 22) name[1A]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 23) name[1B]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 24) name[1C]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 25) name[1D]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 26) name[1E]      ==     ( 0)  :
 ( 27) name[1F]      ==     ( 0)  :
pv> q

(fv [p])> show pv

version: 0, apollo: , name: "I'm_so_forgetful"
uid: 0.00000000 uid_$nil, built on 0

dtype: 0, blocks_per_pvol: 0 (0)
sects_per_track: 0, tracks_per_cyl: 0


phys_badspot_daddr: 0, phys_diag_daddr: 0
phys_sector_start: 0, phys_sector_size: 0 (0), pre_comp: 0

(fv [p])> w
.
.
.


-- 
"There is a time to laugh and a time not to laugh and this is not one of them."
                                              Inspector Jacques Clouseau

sboyle@mentor.com				Mentor Graphics Corporation