[geeks] Raw disk access under Solaris

[JP Hindin]

On Tue, 6 Sep 2016, Sandwich Maker wrote:
> " I expected it would be as simple as connecting the drive and doing a dd on
> " slice2, which I was under the impression was the whole disk, but whenever
> " I try I get an 'I/O Error'. What I'm wondering is if the reason it's
> " failing is because it's _not_ a Sun disk and so while Solaris is
> " enumerating the slices/partitions, since there isn't actually a readable
> " partition map for Solaris it's bombing out.
> "
> " I've made certain the /dev/dsk/ drive is pointing to the right /devices/
> " qLogic controller and drive ID, the drive has internal terminators enabled
> " so it's a direct SCSI cable between the controller and the drive. The only
> " other thing I'm doing that might be considered out of the norm is I have
> " the write protect jumper enabled on the drive itself.
> "
> " Am I mistaken on my assumption of where this issue is? Is there actually a
> " lower-level access problem with the drive? (It is correctly identified by
> " a probe-scsi-all)
>
> my first thought: as a non-sun disk, it doesn't have a partition map,
> thus no slice 2.
>
> the raw disk should still be readable at an even lower level.

Right that's... exactly what my assumption is (as above), but I have, as 
yet, determined _what_ the lower level access mechanism is. In /devices/ 
the drive is already enumerated into slices, there doesn't appear to just 
be a "c2t1d0" device, only c2t1d0sX devices.

Searching for 'low level drive access solaris' isn't getting me very 
far... it's almost as if it never occurred to anyone to ever try to dd a 
non-Sun disk :)

  - JP