UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Solaris 8

I have been asked to replace a failed drive(or learn how to) on a solaris 8 box w/a d1000 array connected. The person who configured the box is no longer around and all that is known is that it maty be raid 5 with mirrors.

I did a metadb and no metadevices were found.

Can anyone please direct me on how to initially find out how this box may be configured so I can then search for the correct procedure on what to do?

What other commands can I run or what software can I look for which will tell me what commands to run in order to expposed configuration?

Your server may be using Veritas instead of Sun's disk tools to do the raid. If you don't have any metadbs I would bet that is the case. Look for Veritas software by doing a pkginfo | grep -i VRTS or by checking for directories with VRTS in the name under /opt. If you have that, go to Veritas' website and you should be able to find the procedures you need in their knowledge base.

DISCLAIMER: Messing around with raid disks is a little risky in that if you screw it up badly enough you could lose data. One tip I will give, get a backup of everything on the d1000 before doing the work just in case.

I have replaced bad disks on an array with Veritas software raid on it before. What I had to do is use the vxdiskadm utility. There is an option "mark failed disk for removal" or something like that. I marked the disk bad that way, then swapped out the bad disk for the new one. Then you run vxdiskadm again and choose "replace a failed disk". It brings the new disk into the config and copies the data to it from the surviving good mirror.

There are of course lots of details involved so finding the procedure documentation like I mentioned in the first paragraph is a much better idea than just firing up vxdiskadm and winging it based on the brief tips I gave above.

Good luck.

figured it out.....looked at the processes......using Sun Raid Manager(GUI).

Thanks for the warnings and advice.