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Solaris Common Desktop Environment: User's Guide
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Chapter 6 Using Removable Media Manager

Use Removable Media Manager to format, protect, and view data on removable media devices such as diskettes, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, Iomega Zip drives, and Iomega Jaz drives.

Starting Removable Media Manager

To open the Removable Media Manager:

  • In File Manager, choose Removable Media Manager from the File menu.

  • From the Front Panel, click the Removable Media Manager icon in the Files subpanel.

  • From the Workspace menu, choose Removable Media Manager in the Folders menu.

When Removable Media Manager starts, it displays all media currently loaded into the drives. The different forms of devices are represented by icons and are unlimited. For example, if a machine has three drives loaded with diskettes, three diskette icons are displayed. The icon view updates each time a device is inserted or ejected. Each class of media is represented by a different icon.

You can select one or more devices and perform operations on them. A device is displayed with a nickname (cdrom0), an optional volume name (ssa_2_1_sparc), and an optional partition or slice number (s1).

Note –

In order to have the Removable Media Manager recognize a diskette, you must choose Open Floppy from one of the following:

  • File subpanel of the Front Panel

  • File menu of the File Manager

  • Folders menu of the Workspace Menu

Supported Media Classes

Removable Media Manager supports the following devices:

  • Diskette

  • CD-ROM

  • DVD-ROM

  • Zip

  • Jaz

  • Rmdisk (generic call includes Sysquest devices)

Viewing Additional Information About a Device

To display additional information about a device, you must change the viewing option. To do this:

To Change the Viewing Option

  1. In the Removable Media Manager window, click on a device.

  2. From the View menu, select Set View Options.

  3. Under the Representation section, select the By Name, date, size... button.

  4. Click OK.

Note –

If the device has no name, it is shown as ..unnamed.

In verbose mode, Removable media manager shows the following for each media object:

  • Volume name

  • Media nickname or alias

  • Media partition or slice number

  • Total storage capacity

  • Mount point UNIX permissions

  • Mount point owner name

  • Mount point group name

  • Mount point path

  • Mount point date

Properties

The Properties dialog box displays the properties and capacity capabilities of a device. Two property categories can be displayed using the properties dialog box:

  • Information—shows the alias, product id, write protect and password protection status. Also displayed are the file system, mount point and total capacity.

  • Floating Capacities—shows the used and available capacities for a device.

To View the Properties of a Device

The properties of a device are available using two different methods. Properties can be accessed from the Removable Media Manager menu and from the Command Line.

  1. Viewing properties from the Removable Media Window

    1. From the Removable Media Manager window, click on a device to select it.

    2. From the Selected menu, select Properties.

  2. To view properties using the command line option, type:


    sdtmedia_prop -u k /vol/dev/rdsk/...

    where —u is b, k, m, or g.

    This action shows capacities in units of bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, or gigabytes.

Formatting and Slicing Devices

You can format, name, and create file systems in a single operation on all types of removable devices by the format option in the Removable Media Manager window.

Two separate actions are launched. The first is a low level format of the device, which utilizes a status bar to update you on the percentage completed. When the format is complete, the second action is launched which applies the file system and optional name and slices to the device.

To Format a Device

Formatting is done on all re-writable devices, including diskettes, Jaz, and Zip devices. Formatting can be initiated in one of two ways.

  1. To format from the Removable Media Manager window:

    1. Click on a device icon.

    2. From the Removable Media Manager window, choose the Selected menu.

    3. Choose Format.

      The Media Format window will appear with further selections relative to the device you have selected.

    4. Select either Quick Format or Long Format.

    5. Select a type from the File System pull-down menu.

    6. (Optional) Under Volume Name type a name for the formatted device.

      If no name is specified, the device will not be named. If the device has already been formatted and has a volume name, the volume name will not be shown.

      If UFS was selected as the file system the Solaris Slice Editor button will appear in the dialog box.

    7. Click Format.

      Note –

      `Long Format' ignores password protection on the device. If the media is read-write protected you will be prompted for the password. 'Long Format' is the default value for previously sliced media, write protected media or write protected with password media.

  2. To format using the command line option:

    To format, name, and create file systems on all types of removable media devices from the command line type:


    sdtmedia_format -d volume_device_name
Creating Solaris Slices

The Media Slice Editor is used to create Solaris slices on a device. You can only create slices in an UFS file system. If you select a PCFS or UDFS file system, you will not have the option of creating Solaris slices.

Once slices are created, the Media Slice Editor can be used to write UFS or UDFS file systems onto the slices. Where possible the Media Slice Editor will check the slice values supplied by the user and the overall integrity of the slice information. For example, it will report errors for overlapping slices.

There are two methods of creating slices. The first is to use the AutoSlice option.

  1. Using AutoSlice.

    1. Select the AutoSlice button.

    2. Type the number of slices to be created.

    3. Click OK.

  2. Or you may enter the number and size of the slices into the Slice Editor dialog box. The Slice Editor will create slices on cylinder boundaries.

To Protect a Device

Device protection enables you to view the software protection for a selected device and to either write protect, read-write protect or disable protection. The device protection options are:

  • Disable Protection

  • Write Protect Without Password

  • Write Protect With Password

  • Read-Write Protect with Password

To View a Device's Protection

  1. In the Removable Media Manager window, click on a device.

  2. From the Selected menu, choose Properties.

To Disable Protection

This option allows the user to disable software protections if the medium has been previously write or read-write protected.

  1. If the media has been write protected without a password:

    1. In the Removable Media Manager window, select the device.

    2. From the Selected menu, select Disable Protection.

  2. If the media has been write or read-write protected with a password:

    1. In the Removable Media Manager window, select the device.

    2. From the Selected Menu, choose Disable Protection.

    3. Type the password into the Password dialog.

To Enable Protection

This option allows the user to enable software protection.

  1. To write protect without a password:

    1. In the Removable Media Manager window, select the device.

    2. From the Selected Menu, choose Write Protect.

    3. In the Protect dialog, click Write Protect Without Password.

    4. Click OK.

  2. To write protect with a password:

    1. In the Removable Media Manager window, select the device.

    2. From the Selected menu, choose Write Protect.

    3. In the Protect dialog, click Write Protect With Password.

    4. In the Enter Password area, type the password.

    5. Tab to the Verify Password area and type the password again.

    6. Click Apply.

  3. To read-write protect with a password:

    1. In the Removable Media Manager window, select the device.

    2. From the Selected Menu, choose Read-Write Protect.

    3. In the Protect dialog, click Read-Write Protect With Password.

    4. In the Enter Password area, type the password.

    5. Tab to the Verify Password area and type the password again.

    6. Click Apply.

  4. Command Line Option

    To start the Password dialog box from the command line, type:


    sdtmedia_prot [-w|-d] /vol/dev/rdsk/...
    Use the command line options in the following table to specify the degree of protection for the device.

    Table 6–1 Command Line Option sdtmedia_prot

    —w 

    If the device is not protected, write protects the device without a password and does not display any dialogs. If the device is already protected, displays an error dialog. 

    —d 

    Disable device protection. If the device is password protected, the user is prompted for the password. 

    Use the command line options in the following to specify the degree of protection for a device.

To Change Your Password

To change your password, you must first disable the existing password protection and then apply the new password protection to the device. After entering your new password you will have to enable password protection.

  1. Disable your password protection.

  2. Type a new password in the field.

  3. Re-enter the same password.

  4. Click Apply to enable password protection or Cancel to abort the operation.