232 Chapter 11
Utilities
dfdutil
Entering HELP without a command name displays a list of all available
dfdutil commands. Entering the specific command name after HELP
outputs specific information about the command.
Notes and cautions about dfdutil
This section presents some limitations and cautions concerning
dfdutil.
Backup before downloads
Some firmware downloads may affect formatting resulting in the loss of
some or all the data on the disk.
CAUTION Back up all disks before loading firmware onto them.
Halting the system during downloads
Halting the system during a download may leave the drive being
downloaded in an unusable state.
CAUTION Never halt the computer, power cycle it, or in any way interrupt
operation during a download.
Power cycling after a download
Some disk drives store downloaded code to nonvolatile memory but do
not load and run this code until after the next bus reset or power cycle.
NOTE Power cycle the system and all cabinets or racks containing drives that
have been downloaded after all downloads have been completed. Restart
dfdutil and examine the revision levels in the bootable device table to
make sure that all downloads were successful.
If attempting to download a corrupted or inappropriate firmware file to
some drives, the drives drop the downloaded data and return good
status. For this reason, dfdutil can not always determine if a download
did, in fact, complete successfully.
