Solaris: Preparing Hard Disks and Partitioning Disks

Solaris does not allow track zero on the disk to be part of the raw device used by the database system. When the machine is rebooted, the operating system writes a label here. Consequently, data from the database is overwritten and a restore of the database becomes necessary.

If you use a RAID System or a Volume Management Software from Sun
(Solstice DiskSuite or Veritas Volume Manager) then the device driver will
take care of this restriction.
Otherwise, when you initially setup a raw device, the standard second
partition (/dev/rdsk/c?t?d?s2) may not be used since it normally includes
track zero on the disk. A disk that is intended for use as a raw device, must be reformatted appropriately to ensure that the raw device begins at track one. Check your disk configuration as soon as possible to make sure that your raw devices meet the above requirements. To do this:
Log on as root and change to the directory
/<db-system>/<SAPSID>/sapdata
List the links to the raw devices by entering the command:
ls -lR
Display all partitions on a disk (substitute “?”):
/usr/sbin/prtvtoc <rawdevice>