== How to clear Solaris Volume Manager metadb replicas on Solaris 10 x86 It is possible to get a DiskSuite metadb replica into a sufficiently damaged state that it will panic the system in early boot, which is especially irritating when you [[aren't using it for anything DisksuiteMetasetGotcha]]. This can lead to you needing to clear metadb replicas. (If you get past boot by turning off _svc:/system/metainit_ the system panics when you run _metadb_ or _metainit_, which is not too helpful for actually dealing with the problem.) If you don't care about leaving the actual bits intact for potential analysis, I believe you can just _dd_ _/dev/zero_ over the appropriate slice. (Do not do this, however, if you have been tempted into using that conveniently spare slice 8 as a metadb replica.) The less brutal way out is to boot into the rescue environment, edit your _/kernel/drv/md.conf_ and _/etc/lvm/mddb.cf_ to remove the slice (you must edit *both*), rebuild the boot archive with _bootadm update-archive -R /a_, and reboot. (If you are masochistic you can go through the dance necessary to turn off the metainit service, bring the system up in single user, do this, and then turn metainit back on. But the rescue environment way is simpler.) Disclaimer: recovering from dropping below metadb replica quorum is beyond the scope of this entry. Besides, I haven't had to do it yet.