The disk manufacturer/ model numbers might help get a better answer. How are they configured? 520B, 528B or 512B sectors? Try running SG tools on them and see if you get a clue as to what you have and change it to 512B if needed
Thanks for your help, the problem is I cannot get the drives to be ready. Here is what happens when I run smartctl:
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smartctl -a -T verypermissive /dev/sda
smartctl 5.43 2012-06-30 r3573 [i686-linux-3.10.4-pmagic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-12 by Bruce Allen,
smartmontools
Vendor: IBM-ESXS
Product: ST9600204SS
Revision: B548
Logical Unit id: 0x5000c50039c3f227
Serial number: 6WN0M83H0000B135LPAX
Device type: disk
Transport protocol: SAS
Local Time is: Tue Mar 27 19:04:57 2018 UTC
device is NOT READY (e.g. spun down, busy)
Device does not support SMART
Error Counter logging not supported
Device does not support Self Test logging
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If I try to format I get
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sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sda
IBM-ESXS ST9600204SS B548 peripheral_type: disk [0x0]
<< supports protection information>>
MODE SENSE (10) command, device not ready
try '-v' for more information