user manual

J Alternative Ways to Initialize the System Disk
The usual way to create a new OpenVMS system disk is to install OpenVMS with the INITIALIZE
option. When you do this, the installation process responds as follows:
• On OpenVMS Integrity server systems only, a diagnostic partition is created.
The diagnostic partition is visible only from the console; it corresponds to the contents of
SYS$MAINTENANCE:SYS$DIAGNOSTICS.SYS on the system disk. The partition is intended
and reserved for use by HP Services (it is used with the HP IPF Offline Diagnostics and
Utilities CD provided with the purchase of your Integrity servers). For more information
about offline diagnostics, see your hardware documentation and the following website:
http://docs.hp.com/hpux/diag
HP recommends creating the system disk with this partition and not removing it. However,
it is not required for operation of OpenVMS.
If you do not want the diagnostic partition, you can prevent its creation by initializing the
disk before installing OpenVMS, performing the steps in Section J.1 (page 323). Alternatively,
if you have already created the system disk and the partition, you can remove it by
performing the steps in Section J.2 (page 324).
• The disk is initialized with volume expansion (INITIALIZE/LIMIT).
This method of initialization (using the /LIMIT qualifier) might make your target system
disk incompatible with versions of OpenVMS prior to 7.2. HP recommends that you create
your system disk in the default manner unless you need to mount the disk on a version of
OpenVMS prior to 7.2.
You can avoid use of the /LIMIT qualifier by initializing your target system disk before you
install OpenVMS, performing the steps in Section J.1 (page 323). As a result of this alternate
method, your new system disk might include a relatively large minimum allocation size (as
defined by /CLUSTER_SIZE). Small files will use more space than would be used otherwise.
Therefore, perform these steps only for system disks that must be mounted on versions of
OpenVMS prior to Version 7.2.
J.1 Alternative Method of Initialization
Use the following initialization method to avoid use of the /LIMIT qualifier or, for OpenVMS
Integrity servers, to prevent creation of the diagnostic partition.
NOTE: When you initialize your target disk using the following method, you must use the
PRESERVE option during the installation of OpenVMS on the disk. If you use the INITIALIZE
option, the disk is reinitialized using the defaults.
1. After booting the operating system media, and before installing the operating system, select
option 8 (“Execute DCL commands and procedures”) on the main menu.
2. Initialize the intended target disk with the following command:
$ INITIALIZE /SYSTEM /HEADERS=150000 /STRUCTURE=ods-level target-disk target-label
where:
• ods-level is 2 (for ODS-2) or 5 (for ODS-5).
• target-disk is the device for the target disk (such as DKA100:).
• target-label is the label for the target disk (you can change the label later).
If you specified ODS-5 and you want support for hard links, include the
/VOLUME_CHARACTERISTICS=HARDLINKS qualifier with the INITIALIZE command.
If you are using this method of initialization to prevent creation of a diagnostic partition,
and you do not intend to mount the disk on an OpenVMS system prior to version 7.2, include
the /LIMIT qualifier with the INITIALIZE command. If you do not use the /LIMIT qualifier,
your new system disk might be initialized with a relatively large minimum allocation size.
This can cause small files to use more space than necessary.
J.1 Alternative Method of Initialization 323