System Administration Guide: Basic Administration

Displaying Disk Slices

You can use the format utility to check whether a disk has the appropriate disk slices. If you determine that a disk does not contain the slices you want to use, use the format utility to re-create them and label the disk. For information on creating disk slices, see SPARC: How to Create Disk Slices and Label a Disk or x86: How to Create Disk Slices and Label a Disk.

Note –

The format utility uses the term partition instead of slice.

How to Display Disk Slice Information

Become superuser or assume an equivalent role.

Invoke the format utility.
# format

Type the number of the disk for which you want to display slice information from the list displayed on your screen.
Specify disk (enter its number):1

Select the partition menu.
format> partition

Display the slice information for the current disk drive.
partition> print

Exit the format utility.
partition> q format> q #

Verify the displayed slice information by identifying specific slice tags and slices.

If the screen output shows that no slice sizes are assigned, the disk probably does not have slices.

Examples—Displaying Disk Slice Information

The following example displays slice information for disk with a VTOC label.

# format
Searching for disks...done
Specify disk (enter its number):1
Selecting c0t0d0
format> partition
partition> print
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 8892 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders        Size            Blocks
  0       root    wm    1110 - 4687        1.61GB    (0/3578/0) 3381210
  1       swap    wu       0 - 1109      512.00MB    (0/1110/0) 1048950
  2     backup    wm       0 - 8891        4.01GB    (0/8892/0) 8402940
  3 unassigned    wm       0               0         (0/0/0)          0
  4 unassigned    wm       0               0         (0/0/0)          0
  5 unassigned    wm       0               0         (0/0/0)          0
  6 unassigned    wm       0               0         (0/0/0)          0
  7       home    wm    4688 - 8891        1.89GB    (0/4204/0) 3972780
partition> q
format> q
#

For a detailed description of the slice information in these examples, see Chapter 32, Managing Disks (Overview).

The following example shows the slice information on a disk with an EFI label.

# format
Searching for disks...done
Specify disk (enter its number): 9
selecting c4t1d0
[disk formatted]
format> partition
partition> print
Current partition table (original):
partition> q
format> q
Part      Tag    Flag     First Sector          Size          Last Sector
  0       root    wm                34       300.00GB           629145633
  1        usr    wm         629145634       300.00GB           1258291233
  2 unassigned    wm                 0            0                0    
  3 unassigned    wm                 0            0                0    
  4 unassigned    wm                 0            0                0    
  5 unassigned    wm                 0            0                0    
  6        usr    wm        1258291234       628.77GB           2576924637
  8   reserved    wm        2576924638         8.00MB           2576941021