[dnsplus]

also, the 6.5 GOS does not update the BIOS of the machine. 5.2.067 was on version 1.12.
After doing the clean install, the bios still reports 1.12 with the same old date of 2009.

It seems that the 6.5 kernel is not new enough to deal with GPT partitions:

-sh-3.1# cat /etc/devices
/dev/sdd SCSI0:0-0 2930266584 2930 GB WDC-WD30EFRX-68 0/3 WD-WCC4N1SFTUJX
/dev/sdc SCSI1:0-0 1953514584 1953 GB SAMSUNG-HD204UI 0/2 S2H7JD2B108856
/dev/sdb SCSI2:0-0 1953514584 1953 GB SAMSUNG-HD204UI 0/1 S2H7JD2B108847
/dev/sda SCSI3:0-0 1953514584 1953 GB SAMSUNG-HD204UI 0/0 S2H7JD2B108858

fsck.ext2: No such device or address while trying to open /dev/sdd1
Possibly non-existent or swap device?
fsck.ext2 /dev/sdd1 failed (status 0x8). Run manually!
mount: /dev/sdd1 is not a valid block device
umount: /mnt/tmp: not mounted
syncboot: no filesystem on /dev/sdd1, adding fs
syncboot: /dev/sda1 is newer. copying boot information from /dev/sda1 to /dev/sdd1

-sh-3.1# sfdisk -l /dev/sdd
Disk /dev/sdd: cannot get size

Disk /dev/sdd: 0 cylinders, 255 heads, 63 sectors/track

sfdisk: ERROR: sector 0 does not have an msdos signature
/dev/sdd: unrecognized partition table type
No partitions found