Can't boot from mirrored disk

[Stacey Akerstrom]

I am trying to boot from my mirror, to verify that it works.
If I type 'bo alt', I get the following error:
IPLError: bad IPL address
Error reading IPL
If I do a 'sea ipl', my mirrored disk doesn't appear, but yet I did not get any errors when doing the actual mirroring.
Any ideas?

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Stacey,

Did you use the -B parm on the pvcreate command when you were setting up the mirror?
This reserves the LIF area in the proper space on the disk.

What does

lvlnboot -v

return?
You should *both* disks a boot disk in the first section & then both in all the other except the dump. Don't need to mirror dump.

May need to recreate from the beginning.

HTH,
Jeff

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

Make sure the path is correct for your Alternate path.

If it is not finding IPL, then there is a good chance that it was not created as a boot disk. Login with your primary disk and do

#lvlnboot -v

See if the alternate disk appears as boot disk. You can also run couple of commands to verify the LIF area

#lifls /dev/rdsk/cxtydz
#lifcp /dev/rdsk/cxtydz:AUTO -

You shouldnot see any errors there. If you do, then your mirror disk creation process was not correct. There are many threads on this topic and you can get the correct procedure from them.

-Sri

[Michael Tully]

What procedures did you use to create the mirror. It could be that the LIF is missing from the volume header of the disk.
Use 'lvlnboot -v' to verify

[Stacey Akerstrom]

I've attached the script I used to mirror.
Here's my lvlnboot -v output:
# lvlnboot -v
Boot Definitions for Volume Group /dev/vg00:
Physical Volumes belonging in Root Volume Group:
/dev/dsk/c1t15d0 (0/0/1/1.15.0) -- Boot Disk
/dev/dsk/c3t15d0 (0/0/2/1.15.0) -- Boot Disk
Boot: lvol1 on: /dev/dsk/c1t15d0
/dev/dsk/c3t15d0
Root: lvol3 on: /dev/dsk/c1t15d0
/dev/dsk/c3t15d0
Swap: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c1t15d0
/dev/dsk/c3t15d0
Dump: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c1t15d0, 0

If I type 'sea' at the IPL prompt, it *does" see the path my alt disk is on, but if I try to boot from it I get the bad IPL address error.

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Stacey,

What does the command

setboot

return?
Does the path for Alt match your path?

Rgds,
Jeff

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Hi,

Your procedure is looking ok. IPL is read by PDC. What kind of disk you have?. Is it identical with the primary disk? (diskinfo).

-Sri

[Kent Ostby]

Since you have verified (via lvlnboot) that the mirror is a boot disk (i.e. had the -B option submitted during the pvcreate command as shown by having both disks listed as Boot Disks), there are two possibilities:

1) You do not have your alternate boot path set correctly (run "setboot" and see what it shows).

2) LIF was corrupted. To fix this (assuming c3t15d0 is the problem), do:
mkboot /dev/dsk/c3t15d0
then
mkboot -a "hpux -lq" /dev/dsk/c3t15d0

Best regards,

Kent M. Ostby

[Steven E. Protter]

My complete guide for mirroring the boot disk and making it bootable:

pvcreate -B /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0 #use real disk

mkboot -l /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0
mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdsk/c1t0d0 # use real disk


# mkboot -b /usr/sbin/diag/lif/updatediaglif -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p PAD -p LABEL /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?

If you are running 64-bit OS:

# mkboot -b /usr/sbin/diag/lif/updatediaglif2 -p ISL -p AUTO -p HPUX -p PAD -p LABEL /dev/rdsk/c?t?d?


vgextend /dev/vg00 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0 # same thing
lvextend -m 1 /dev/vg00/lvol1 /dev/dsk/c1t0d0

# real disk. repeat for other lvols

lvlnboot -r /dev/vg00/lvol3 # root fs /
lvlnboot -s /dev/vg00/lvol2 #swap
lvlnboot -d /dev/vg00/lvol2 #swap/dump
lvlnboot -b /dev/vg00/lvol1
lvlnboot -R
lvlnboot -v
setboot
setboot -a 52.1.0 # second disk

SEP

[A. Clay Stephenson]

Well, your procedure should work but let's check a few "off the wall" things.

Do an ls -l /dev/rdsk/c3t15d0 and an ls -l /dev/dsk/c3t15d0. Make sure that the MINOR device numbers are identical. (The major device numbers will and should differ). If these minor device numbers differ, chaos could result.

I normally use the character device node for mkboot although the block device should work.

I would repeat the mkboot commands:
mkboot /dev/rdsk/c3t15d0
mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdsk/c3t15d0

It is also very important that the LVOL's (at least the first 3) be mirrored in strict order; your script should do that.

[Stacey Akerstrom]

After spending a few hours on the phone last night (along with much head banging), we came to the conclusion that the problem *appeared* to be a result of not using the absolute path name in my script. LIF appeared corrupt.
When I tried to do the mkboot "hpux -lq" again, it looked better, but when I rebooted I lost it.
I ultimately ended up doing and lv and vgreduce, added absolute path name to script for mkboot and pvcreate and ran again.
This time it worked, and I successfully booted off the alternate disk.
THanks for the effort, folks.