Replacing Root Drive Strategy

[Betty Hardin]

I have a D390 with two drives in it. Planning to replace the drive that has the OS (HPUX 11i) on it - today - and need to retain the data on the 2nd drive (this is critical).

I am thinking about doing an ignite backup (to tape) of the root drive, remove the old drive, install the new drive (which is a different size), start the server with the ignite backup and wa! la! .. I should have it.
I will then need to modify the swap space on the new drive so that we have more swap space allocated.

Logical or not?

Is there a better solution?

Note that the drive being replaced was upgraded from 10x HPUX - and I wonder if I would be better off doing a clean install - and how I would go about doing that and still retain the data from the 2nd drive?

Thanks in advance !
Betty

[Torsten.]

Hi Betty,

is your second drive in it's own volume group or vg00?

If your OS is working without problems there is no need to do a cold install.

If there is a second vg for the second drive, please vgexport the vg first.
Tip: remove the drive also from the server.
Now replace your boot disk and restore the ignite backup. Insert the second drive again and vgimport it (use a mapfile).
Use the ignite interactive mode to resize the lvols (swap ...).

[Betty Hardin]

Yes - the 2nd drive is in it's own volume group

[Torsten.]

The most critical thing is to select the right disk while restoring the backup. If you are sure about this, just ignite your system, install the new disk and restore.

If you are in doubt, vgexport the second disk, remove it, backup and restore, insert the second disk, vgimport it.

[DCE]

Betty,

I would do the following steps:

vgexport -p -m vg01
(creates map file - you can place anywhere you want in vg00)

Perform full back of the system - just in case

Perform ignite backup

vgexport without -p to actually export the second vg

replace the drive

perform the ignite recovery on the new drive

vgimport from the map file created in the first step

activate the volume group

mount all the mount points

[Andrew Rutter]

hi betty,

the above posts sound good to me.

just a point to make, when you do the ignite backup.
include the -i option when you create the tape that way it will stop and give you a chance to interact with the restore. From here you can resize all your new lvols as required. I also do it twice just incase there a problem with the first tape, you never know.

Andy