Help! HP-UX 10.20 can not find /stand/vmunix during boot

[Jay Song]

We are experiencing some difficulty of booting an HP-UX 10.20 server. The error message we got is "failed to locate /stand/vmunix or /vmunix." It is important to recover the data on the system, so we try to avoid reinstall everything. Can someone let me know how we can recover a system missing the vmunix file.

Thanks.

Jay Song

[Sridhar Bhaskarla]

Jay,

Looks like you lost vmunix in your /stand. At the ISL do an ll and see if you have vmunix.prev still with you.

ISL>hpux -ll

This will display all the kernels with a * mark at the end. Boot from the available kernel. For ex., if it lists vmunix.prev then boot from it with the following syntax

ISL>hpux /stand/vmunix.prev

Once the system is up, then rebuild the kernel.. Once the kernel is rebuilt make sure you have it under /stand as vmunix and then reboot the system.

-Sri

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Jay,

Like sridhar said, try booting the primary path and select "y" to interact with IPL. At the ipl prompt type "hpux -ll /stand"

this will list the files on /stand. Locate a kernel. If you have lost the original kernel, you may still have a backup kernel. Boot thru that and rebuild the kernel to generate a new kernel.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[Roger Baptiste]

hi,

Hope that you have a (old)copy of vmunix in your
stand filesystem!

The detailed steps for recovery are in these two
documents:
How do I boot my system from Support Media on 10.X ? DocId: OZBEKBRC00000581

An accompanying doc which
you may want to look at is:
KBRC00000994

-raj

[Anthony deRito]

First you want to boot into ISL mode...

ISL booting hpux....
Exec failed: cannot find /stand/vmunix or /vmunix
ISL> hpux ll

If hpux ll does not return an error then at least you know your boot volume is intact. If the command returns an error then your LVM pointers to the boot volume are corrupt and you need to use the Recovery CD and select "Recover an Unbootable HP-UX System". (r option). Then use the "Rebuild only the bootlif" menu choice. (c option) Now your back in business.

If ll does not return an error and lists the files except for a vmunix file, you need to get a kernel back. The kernel must be recompiled. This process is quite long but in a nutshell...

Boot from the recovery CD
Select "Instructions on chrooting to a lvm /"

You will be displayed an procedure on exactly what to do. It will describe how to exit to a shell and recompile the kernel. Its seems difficult but perfectly doable and it works great. You will ultimately recompile your kernel like this:

# cd /stand
# mk_kernel -o /stand/vmunix

Compiling /stand/build/con.c...
.
.
.
#shutdown -ry 0


Hope this helps!

Tony

[Jay Song]

Thank you very much for all of your help. Our system is finally up and running, by rebuilding the entire system. It's a price we paid, and a lesson we learned. I'm deeply impressed by all the help I have received.

Thanks.

Jay