fmthard(1M)                                                                                                                            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

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

       The  fmthard command updates the VTOC (Volume Table of Contents) on hard disks and, on  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  systems, fdisk(1M) must be run on the drive before fmthard.

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

       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  "-",
                               fmthard  reads from standard input. The datafile format is described below. This option causes all of the disk par-
                               tition 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 auto-
                               matically 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  character (
). If the first character of a line is an asterisk (*), the line is treated as a com-
                               ment. Each line is composed of entries that are position-dependent, separated by "white space" and having the  fol-
                               lowing 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 , 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 mountable 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.

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

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

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

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

       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 one terabyte, fmthard cannot write a VTOC on an unlabeled disk. Use format(1M) for this purpose.

                                                                    11 Apr 2005                                                        fmthard(1M)