Removing a Disk Drive

Back up the data on the disk drive; see the backup chapter of Managing Systems and Workgroups.

If your system is an NFS server and file systems on the disk you are moving are exported,

1. Find the NFS clients by logging in to the NFS server and looking at the /etc/exports file. Refer to exports(4) in the HP-UX Reference.

2. Notify the users on the NFS client systems that data on the disk being relocated will be inaccessible temporarily (users on a diskless system will be unable to use their system at all).

3. Unmount the file systems from the NFS client. If you do not unmount the file systems from the client, the client will receive NFS error messages when accessing the files on the disk.

   There are several methods to unmount the NFS client file systems:

   1. Enter the Remote Administration area of SAM on the NFS server and unmount the file systems remotely.

   2. Log in directly to each NFS client and unmount the file systems using either SAM or HP-UX commands.

   Refer to the file systems chapter of the Managing Systems and Workgroups for specific instructions on unmounting file systems. For detailed information on Network File Systems, refer to Installing and Administering NFS Services.

Create a backup copy of the /etc/fstab file (cp /etc/fstab /etc/fstab.old).

Edit /etc/fstab to remove any mount entries for the disk being removed. Update the /etc/fstab on all NFS client systems to remove the mount entries for file systems that are on the disk drive being removed.

If you are removing an LVM disk,

1. Execute a vgdisplay -v command to display the contents of the active volume groups. (When moving an LVM disk, most of your LVM commands will be based on the volume group to which the disk belongs.)

2. Execute lvdisplay -v for every logical volume in the volume group of the disk being removed to locate any logical volumes currently straddling the disk being moved and another disk. If you find any,

   • Back up the data and remove the logical volume, by executing an lvremove command.

     Or, if the logical volume is mirrored,

   • Remove the mirroring, by executing an lvreduce -m 0 command.

3. Execute a vgchange command to deactivate the volume group to which the disk is being added.

4. If the disk comprises an entire volume group, execute a vgexport command to remove it from the current configuration.

   If the disk comprises a portion of a volume group, execute a vgreduce command. The disk can now free be removed.

Notify the users on the system about system shutdown as a result of removing the disk drive.

Shut down and bring your system into single-user mode using the shutdown command.

If you are removing the disk drive your kernel uses for primary swap and dump, reconfigure the kernel to reassign them. Refer to the file systems chapter of the System Administration Tasks.

Halt the system:

/usr/sbin/reboot -h

Turn off any peripherals attached to the computer system and then the SPU.

Turn off, unplug, and disconnect the disk drive.

Turn on any peripherals attached to the computer system and then the SPU. On booting up, insf identifies all devices it finds and creates /dev files for them.

Log in.

Update any software application configurations that use the removed disk drive. Refer to your software application documentation for specific instructions.