fmthard(1M)						  System Administration Commands					       fmthard(1M)

NAME

       fmthard - populate label on hard disks

SYNOPSIS

   SPARC
       fmthard -d data | -n volume_name | -s datafile [-i] /dev/rdsk/c?
	    [t?] d?s2

   x86
       fmthard -d data | -n volume_name | -s datafile [-i] /dev/rdsk/c?
	    [t?] d?s2

DESCRIPTION

       The  fmthard  command  updates  the VTOC (Volume Table of Contents) on hard disks and, on x86 systems, adds boot information to the Solaris
       fdisk partition. One or more of the options -s datafile, -d data, or -n volume_name must be used  to  request  modifications  to  the  disk
       label.  To print disk label contents, see prtvtoc(1M). The /dev/rdsk/c?[t?]d?s2 file must be the character special file of the device where
       the new label is to be installed. On x86 systems, fdisk(1M) must be run on the drive before fmthard.

       If you are using an x86 system, note that the term ``partition'' in this page refers to slices  within  the  x86  fdisk	partition  on  x86
       machines. Do not confuse the partitions created by fmthard with the partitions created by fdisk.

OPTIONS

       The following options are supported:

       -d data

	   The	data  argument	of this option is a string representing the information for a particular partition in the current VTOC. The string
	   must be of the format part:tag:flag:start:size where part is the partition number, tag is the ID TAG of the partition, flag is the  set
	   of  permission flags, start is the starting sector number of the partition, and size is the number of sectors in the partition. See the
	   description of the datafile below for more information on these fields.

       -i

	   This option allows the command to create the desired VTOC table, but prints the information to standard output instead of modifying the
	   VTOC on the disk.

       -n volume_name

	   This option is used to give the disk a volume_name up to 8 characters long.

       -s datafile

	   This  option  is  used to populate the VTOC according to a datafile created by the user. If the datafile is - (a hyphen), fmthard reads
	   from standard input. The datafile format is described below. This option causes all of the disk partition timestamp fields to be set to
	   zero.

	   Every VTOC generated by fmthard will also have partition 2, by convention, that corresponds to the whole disk. If the input in datafile
	   does not specify an entry for partition 2, a default partition 2 entry will be created automatically in VTOC with the tag V_BACKUP  and
	   size equal to the full size of the disk.

	   The	datafile contains one specification line for each partition, starting with partition 0. Each line is delimited by a new-line char-
	   acter (
). If the first character of a line is an asterisk (*), the line is treated as a comment. Each line  is  composed  of  entries
	   that are position-dependent, separated by white space and having the following format:

	   partition tag flag starting_sector size_in_sectors

	   where the entries have the following values:

	   partition

	       The  partition number. Currently, for Solaris SPARC, a disk can have up to 8 partitions, 0-7. Even though the partition field has 4
	       bits, only 3 bits are currently used. For x86, all 4 bits are used to allow slices 0-15. Each Solaris fdisk partition can  have	up
	       to 16 slices.

	   tag

	       The  partition  tag:  a	decimal  number. The following are reserved codes: 0 (V_UNASSIGNED), 1 (V_BOOT), 2 (V_ROOT), 3 (V_SWAP), 4
	       (V_USR), 5 (V_BACKUP), 6 (V_STAND), 7 (V_VAR), and 8 (V_HOME).

	   flag

	       The flag allows a partition to be flagged as unmountable or read only, the masks being: V_UNMNT 0x01, and V_RONLY 0x10. For  mount-
	       able partitions use 0x00.

	   starting_sector

	       The sector number (decimal) on which the partition starts.

	   size_in_sectors

	       The number (decimal) of sectors occupied by the partition.

	   You can save the output of a prtvtoc command to a file, edit the file, and use it as the datafile argument to the -s option.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWcsu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       uname(1), format(1M), prtvtoc(1M), attributes(5)

   x86 Only
       fdisk(1M), installgrub(1M)

NOTES

       Special	care  should be exercised when overwriting an existing VTOC, as incorrect entries could result in current data being inaccessible.
       As a precaution, save the old VTOC.

       For disks under two terabytes, fmthard cannot write a VTOC on an unlabeled disk. Use format(1M) for this purpose.

SunOS 5.11							    25 Sep 2008 						       fmthard(1M)