Dual boot procedure

[Jasmin Berube]

We're in the process of developing a procedure for a dual boot with two different HPUX disks, my question is:

Is there a way to have a look or read an unknown disk to see the content. In my case, let say how to see the content of the alternate disk? We just want to validate that there is really bootable disk with the vg stucture and filesystem to activate dual boot.

[Peter Kloetgen]

Hi Jasmin,

there is a way, if you discontinue booting process, you can type in the following command:

> sea(rch) IPL

normally sea(rch) seeks all bootable media, but search IPL checks, if there is a boot sector on the medium. Is that your question?

Allways stay on the bright side of life!

Peter

[Jasmin Berube]

Is there a way to read an alternate disk while the box is booted? That's my real question.

[Pete Randall]

Booting off the alternate, run vgexport -p -s -m /tmp/vg00map /dev/vg00. Then copy the map to tape so you can transfer it to the primary boot drive. Boot off the primary, and run the following commands:
mkdir /dev/vg00copy
mknod /dev/vg00copy/group c 64 0xnn0000 < make sure nn is unique among other group files
vgimport -s -m /tmp/vg00map /dev/vg00copy
vgchange -a y /dev/vg00copy

You can then mount the lvols that exist under vg00copy and examine to your heart's content.

HTH,
Pete

[S.K. Chan]

You can vgimport the other disk and then mount the lvols. For example (c2t2d0) is the "unknown" LVM disk. First you create a VG (say "vgtemp") then simply vgimport it like so ..
# vgimport -v /dev/vgtemp /dev/dsk/c2t2d0
# vgchange -a y /dev/vgtemp
==> activate it
Now you can "vgdisplay" it and mount the LVs.

[Cheryl Griffin · Accepted solution]

A bootable disk would have a LIF that contained ISL, AUTO, HPUX, PAD and LABEL (etc.) To view the LIF, use:
# lifls -l /dev/rdsk/c0t5d0

Auto would contain the hw path to the disk and the name of the kernel:
hpux (;0) /stand/vmunix

Which operating system does a particular disk contain? Not sure of a quick way to tell you how to do this, without booting from the disk and running uname -a.

Cheryl

[Wodisch_1]

Hi Jasmin,

to check wether the *other* disk contains IPL and such enter:

- to find the device names:
ioscan -fnkC disk

- to test/show the boot software:
lifls /dev/rdsk/cXtYdZ

where you would substitute X, Y, and Z with the proper instance, target and LUN numbers from the output of the "ioscan".

The next step would be to "vgimport" the other disk to be able to "mount" the file-systems and then be able to list the files on them...

HTH,
Wodisch

[Jeff Schussele]

Hi Jasmin,

I think what you want to run is
lvlnboot -v
This will search all disks for boot info.
You want to see entries for
Boot
Root
Swap
Dump
for both PVs (primary & alt)
If you do see all 4 on the alt devices - it's a boot disk.

Then you want to do a
pvdisplay -v /dev/dsk/cxtydz
where cxtydz is the device name for the second disk. This will show what, if any, LVs are on that disk

HTH,
Jeff

[George Petrides_1]

A handy command for these kind of situations, is setboot where you can change the boot path of IPL so you don't have to be at the console, interrupt the boot processe, etc. to boot from another disk. You setboot, change the address and shutdown -r -y 0.
George