How to replace a partition table

[Paul Puglia]

On monday I was involved in upgrading a pair of MicroVAX IIs to Ultrix 3.1.
Each Microvax has an Emulex disk drive and controller hooked to them, and 
I did an Advanced install to edited in the controller when I was setting up.
Once the new kernel had compiled and the system had rebooted I logged in 
and added the disktab entry for the drive--this disktab entry has worked
since 1.2.

The installation worked fine on one system, I was able to create the 
special files and newfs the partitions I wanted filesystems on. On the other
system when I went to newfs the first filesystem, I got an error message
saying that there was no partition table in the superblock!! And when 
I went to check the what the partition table was with chpt I got an
error message saying that there was no superblock at all.  Every chpt option
you can use returns with the no superblock error. 

At this point I grabbed the Emulex diags tested the controller and the drive.
The diags reported that both where fine. I then reformated the hard drive
figuring that this would replace the partition table. I rebooted ultrix
and tried chpt. I got the same error as before.  


I have talked to Emulex and they claimed that if the drive passed the 
diags and reformatted without errors then it should be fine, they advised
me to call DEC. Which I have done, and I am still waiting for the call 
back from Atlanta. I am posting this on the off chance that someone 
may know how to replace the partition table on this drive, or give can
me some idea why Ultrix is munging the partition table after the 
first time it accesses the drive.  


Thanks in advance

Paul Puglia
Dept. of Civil Engineering
Columbia University

puglia at cucevx.civil.columbia.edu
puglia at cunixf.cc.columbia.edu    : Internet
PUGLIA at CUCEVX :BITNET