NAME

scsimodes −  Determine the geometry and capacity of a SCSI disk drive

SYNOPSIS

/usr/etc/scsimodes [ -C ] [-v] raw_disk_device

DESCRIPTION

scsimodes queries the disk to determine its capacity and geometry. If you have trouble creating a filesystem on the disk, use this command to help you diagnose the problem.  With no command line options, scsimodes prints to standard output the drive’s manufacturer and model, and the number of bytes per sector, sectors per track, tracks per cylinder, and other information relevant to formatting the disk. 

At the SCSI command level, scsimodes executes a READ CAPACITY command, and two MODE SENSE commands, one for page 3 (format device page), and one for page 4 (rigid disk geometry page) of the mode sense parameters. 

OPTIONS

-C Report the storage capacity of the disk, in megabytes. 

-v (Verbose mode)  Report detailed information about the disk’s geometry.    It is unlikely that you will need this level of detail. 

EXAMPLES

To see the basic formatting information for your root disk device, become superuser and type:

scsimodes /dev/rsd0a

To determine how many megabytes of data this disk can store, type:

scsimodes -C /dev/rsd0a

SEE ALSO

sd(4), disktab(5), disk(8), mkfs(8)

DIAGNOSTICS

scsimodes exits with status 0 after successful execution.  If it fails, it prints a diagnostic message, and exits with status 1. 
 

NeXT Computer, Inc.  —  August 9, 1994