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Initializing disk on Windows

krrish
Level 3
hai,

 i just started learning VXVM.

As suggested by one of our friends on this forum, Lee, i have installed SF for Windows 5.1 on by windows 2008 virtual machine.

i have provisioned couple of iSCSI luns from my NetApp Filer.

everything went fine as far as disk discovery on the server.

my problem is when i run the #vxdisk list command, it shows that the disks are not initialized. i think i cant go forward with out doing that.

but the good side is, i can able to see the disks in the VEA GUI and i am able to initialize the disks, create disk groups, volumes and so on...

i am curious to know how to initialize the disks using command line.......coz after that i can use other good commands to create the disk groups, volume and so on....
is there any difference between how VERITAS sees SCSI disks and iSCSI disks?


Thanks

Krrish.
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions

Michael_Black
Level 4
Employee
It sounds like you might need to bring the disks online. Here is the syntax to do this from the CLI:

vxdisk online “HarddiskX (No Signature)”

View solution in original post

11 REPLIES 11

Michael_Black
Level 4
Employee
It sounds like you might need to bring the disks online. Here is the syntax to do this from the CLI:

vxdisk online “HarddiskX (No Signature)”

Michael_Black
Level 4
Employee
Note: If the disks do not have a signature, you will actually have to include "(No Signature)." In Windows 2008, it is necessary to bring the disks online before they can be used. This was not necessary in 2003.

EJameson
Level 3
Employee Accredited
Additionally, once the disks are brought online, you can write a signature to the disks through the CLI by using the following command:

vxdisk sig <Harddisk#>

SFW should see no difference in the way a disk is managed, when comparing iSCSI to Fibre accessible SAN storage.
While, SFW 5.1 does have the iSCSI information displayed in the VEA GUI, the software should manage the disks in a similar fashion.

Marianne
Moderator
Moderator
Partner    VIP    Accredited Certified

Mike, I have searched the CLI section of the SF Admin Guide - vxdisk online is not mentioned at all.
Is there perhaps a separate CLI manual available? I have searched sfdoccentral (http://sfdoccentral.symantec.com/Storage_Foundation_HA_51SP1_Windows.html).

krrish
Level 3
THANKS everyone for your valuable suggestions.

it seems exactly right that i need to get the disk online before i do any operations on it.

when i tried to do that - it says ERROR and returns 80070057 as a code.

i couldnt figure out what that error meant.

is that any other way i can dig into the problem more.

where can i find the logs for veritas on a windows machine if that can be of ant help?

i used : #vxdisk online Harddisk1(No Signature)

Thanks,
Vinay.

Michael_Black
Level 4
Employee
Make sure you put "Harddisk1(No Signature)" using quotation marks.

rhanley
Level 4
 Hi Krrish,
       I just tested this in my lab using the information provided by Mike and confirmed it works properly.

1. In VEA, I have a disk that is offline and when viewed under 'Disks' in the left pane, I see it listed as follows: Harddisk 11 (No Signature)
2. I ran: vxdisk online "harddisk11 (No Signature)"
3. Command completed successfully and the disk was then online, but still didn't have a signature (as expected).

As EJameson pointed out, you would then need to write a signature to the disk before it would be available to add to a disk group or add a basic volume; however, the command provided will not work. The actual proper command (using harddisk11 from the example above) would be:

vxdisk sig \Device\harddisk11 diskstyle=MBR

or

vxdisk sig \Device\harddisk11 diskstyle=GPT

* The difference being whether you want the disk formatted as MBR or GPT

As with any sfw command, you can simply type vxdisk -? to provide all available options. In addtion, you can also get further syntax assistance on a specific operation by providing the specific operation followed by -?, for example: vxdisk sig -?  or vxdisk online -?

I hope this helps -- If the command still fails, can you paste the command and failure message directly from your command prompt to confirm your syntax is correct and so that we have the entire details of the error?

Thank you,
rjhanley

krrish
Level 3
thanks for the above procedure.

the most weird thing happened to with.

i am not able to execute the command specified above - vxdisk online "Harddisk1 (No Signature)". please find the screen shot below:
  

  
i am not able to figure out the reason.

but when i tried the to put verities signature using #vxdisk sig \Device\Harddisk1 diskstyle=MBR

it worked. i don't know why that happened. with out successfully executing the #vxdisk online command i am able to create a disk group.

i will appreciate any answer that lead to my condition.


Thanks,
Krrish.

  

Michael_Black
Level 4
Employee
I just checked the 5.1 SP1 guide and did not see it there either.

I think this is a relatively new addition. Manually onlining disks was not necessary prior to 2008. It's possible that it just hasn't been added to the documentation yet. I will bring this to the attention of the people that update the documentation.

Michael_Black
Level 4
Employee
Unfortunately, it looks like the screenshot is not showing up.

If adding the signature worked, it's possible that the disk was already online and just needed to be refreshed.

David_Veber
Level 4
Employee Accredited
I helped write a technote about this for server core.
 The commands are as follows.

vxdisk list

   To verify if Harddisk# is listed as "Harddisk# (No Signature)".

vxdisk online "Harddisk# (No Signature)"

To initialize the disk as an GPT disk:

       vxdisk -f sig "Harddisk# (No Signature)" diskstyle=GPT

To initialized as an MBR disk:

       vxdisk -f sig "Harddisk# (No Signature)"

The 80070057 error is invalid arguments which usually means something is typed in correctly.