how do i know my secondary boot disk is good

[Deepak Seth_1]

i have an issue with my primary boot disk . I can see most of critical lvol's are mirrored to the secondary boot disk . Is there any way i can check something to make sure that i should be able to boot this system with secondary boot disk.
(prd123 root):/var/adm/history/lvminfo> setboot
Primary bootpath : 0/0/2/0.6.0
Alternate bootpath : 0/0/2/1.6.0

Class I H/W Path Driver S/W State H/W Type Description
=====================================================================================
disk 1 0/0/2/0.6.0 sdisk NO_HW DEVICE HP 36.4GST336706LC
/dev/dsk/c1t6d0 /dev/rdsk/c1t6d0
disk 2 0/0/2/1.6.0 sdisk CLAIMED DEVICE HP 36.4GST336706LC
/dev/dsk/c2t6d0 /dev/rdsk/c2t6d0

check the setboot and secondary is set ok .

[likid0]

The only way to be 100% shore that your disk is going to boot it's try it out. But because normally that's not posible..

If I haven't made the mirror myself(A system you have inherited) I redo de mirror again to be sure it's ok.

You can check several commands, I nice PDF that goes throw the steps is:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-1236/When_Good_Disks_Go_Bad_WP.pdf

[Ivan Krastev]

Check logical volumes in vg00 group for stale extents. They should be only at the primary (failed) disk.

The best method to check it will be booting from this second disk.

regards,
ivan

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

Do:

# lvlnboot -v

The output should look like:

Boot Definitions for Volume Group /dev/vg00:
Physical Volumes belonging in Root Volume Group:
/dev/dsk/c2t6d0 (10/0.6.0) -- Boot Disk
/dev/dsk/c2t5d0 (10/0.5.0) -- Boot Disk
Boot: lvol1 on: /dev/dsk/c2t6d0
/dev/dsk/c2t5d0
Root: lvol3 on: /dev/dsk/c2t6d0
/dev/dsk/c2t5d0
Swap: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c2t6d0
/dev/dsk/c2t5d0
Dump: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c2t6d0, 0


In addition, you should have a low quorum set on *both* disks. To check this, do:

# lifcp /dev/rdsk/cXtYdZ:AUTO -

...for *both* disks. You should see:

hpux -lq

Of course, the acid test is to actually boot from the secondary disk!

Regards!

...JRF...

[Steven E. Protter]

Shalom,

One one way to be sure.

Boot off it.

Stop your system at ISL or EFI prompt. Boot off alternate disk.

SEP

[Deepak Seth_1]

lvlnboot -v just hangs .
(prd123 root):/> lifcp /dev/rdsk/c2t6d0:AUTO -
lifcp: AUTO does not exist.

should i be worried ?

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi (again) Deepak:

Well, I missed this (key) part :-(

disk 1 0/0/2/0.6.0 sdisk NO_HW DEVICE HP 36.4GST336706LC
/dev/dsk/c1t6d0 /dev/rdsk/c1t6d0

No Hardware (NO_HW) means that the hardware is no longer responding. You need to read and follow the instructions in:

http://docs.hp.com/en/5991-1236/When_Good_Disks_Go_Bad_WP.pdf

Regards!

...JRF...

[ARCHITECT_1]

check this

#lvlnboot -v


else

check in /var/adm/syslog/syslog.log

check for unavailable status in vgdisplay

and check using this command

dd if=/dev/rdsk/c1t3d0 of=/dev/null bs=1024k

[Andrew Rutter]

hi,

worth checking the lvmtab as well

#strings /etc/lvmtab

it maybe that the correct mkboot commands were missed when the miroring was done? or that pvcreate wasnt done with the -B option?

do you know what the procedure was when the mirroring was done.

we could do with more info from your vgdisplay lvdisplay pvdisplay outputs really.

Andy

[Dennis Handly]

>Andrew: worth checking the lvmtab as well
>strings /etc/lvmtab

Any reason you use strings(1) and not vgdisplay?
vgdisplay -v | grep Name

[Deepak Seth_1]

thanks everybody for the quick replies. I had no luck with my secondary boot disk. This is what i finally did

- tried the secondary , didn't work.
- i was able to bring back my failed drive for enough time to redo the mirroring again to my alternate .
- tried alternate disk and it worked.
- reduce the bad drive .
- insert the new drive .
- it start complaining about missing many files . don't know why even though i mirrored my alternate completly .
- finally restoring the data for /usr / and many other vg00 FS .
But still don't know where did i went wrong in mirroring .

[Patrick Wallek]

>>But still don't know where did i went wrong in mirroring .

Well, since you didn't provide any details as to HOW you did the mirroring, we can't be of much help.

[Suraj K Sankari]

Hi,
Ifu didnt get any error in syslog.log that means your disk is good more over you want to check then use the

dd command

Suraj

[Deepak Seth_1]

steps were
pvcreate -B
vgextend
mkboot -a "hpux"....
lvextend -m 1 [1-10]
lvlnboot -R /dev/vg00
lvlnboot -v
setboot
add to /stand/bootconf

what iam thinking is that when i mirrored by secondary disk from bad disk (which was ok for little while) probably got lots of stale extents and they probably got missed out .

what i did
- primary failed.
- secondary failed to boot.
- hard reset bring back the primary up for little bit . enough for me to do mirroring to non-working seconday follow above step.
- tried seconday. i worked.
- reduce the primary mirror.
- put the new drive .
- errors started - complaining about missing lots of files.
- i have to restore them from backup.

this means something didn't went right while doing the mirroring from bad disk to secondary.