mirrored root disk won't boot

[Christopher E Chaves]

Hi all,
Here's my dilemma. I've setup a D380 running HPUX11.00 with a mirrored root disk. I tested the mirrored root disk first by inerrupting the boot sequence and booting off the alternate path (the mirrored disk) and the system booted and all of the data was there. Then I attempted a second test where I physically removed the primary root disk and attempted to boot the machine and it fails. I did include the autostring
mkboot -a "hpux -lq (;0)/stand/vmunix" /dev/rdsk/c1t8d0
so that it would boot with quorum.
Any ideas what's happening?

[Patrick Wallek]

How does it fail? What error message(s) do you get? More information would be very helpful.

[Sanjay_6]

Hi Christopher,

There is a possibility you have not setup the mirror disk properly, like say you may have mirrored the volume on the original disk in a different manner. It should be lvol1 first then lvol2, lvol3 and so on. Then finally run "lvlnboot -R".

What is the error you are getting. Can you post any errors.

Hope this helps.

Regds

[A. Clay Stephenson]

My best guess with so little to go on - you forgot to mirror primary swap.

[harry d brown jr]

When you created the mirror, did you mirror every logical volume in vg00, including swap??

and as Pat said, the exact error messages would be very helpful.


live free or die
harry

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Christopher:

Make sure that your 'Autoboot' is ON (enabled) and also your 'Autosearch' is ON (enabled), along with the correct alternate boot path.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Thierry Poels_1]

Hi,

1. did you get any (usefull) message?

2. can you manually boot from the mirrored disk (with the primary physically removed)??

regards,
Thierry.

[S.K. Chan]

Did all the diagnostics properly copied to that mirrored disk ?
# cd /usr/sbin/diag/lif
# mkboot -b updatediaglif -p ISL -p HPUX -p LABEL -p AUTO /dev/rdsk/c1t8d0

..just throwing things out

[Roger Baptiste]

Hi,

Boot again from the primary
and check whether the swap/boot/root volumes are
set correctly:
The output should be similar
to this: (if everything is correct)
#lvlnboot -v
Boot Definitions for Volume Group /dev/vg00:
Physical Volumes belonging in Root Volume Group:
/dev/dsk/c4t6d0 (10/0.6.0) -- Boot Disk
/dev/dsk/c4t5d0 (10/0.5.0) -- Boot Disk
Boot: lvol1 on: /dev/dsk/c4t6d0
/dev/dsk/c4t5d0
Root: lvol3 on: /dev/dsk/c4t6d0
/dev/dsk/c4t5d0
Swap: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c4t6d0
/dev/dsk/c4t5d0
Dump: lvol2 on: /dev/dsk/c4t6d0, 0

*****


If this is not set correctly,
do a lvlnboot -b
lvlnboot -r
lvlnboot -s
lvlnboot -d

I hope when you did a pvcreate
on the mirror disk, you
did it with -B option!! (for
bootable physical volume).

HTh
raj

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi (again) Christopher:

This has been scratching at my brain since I first responded. I think your problem is found in Knowledge Base document #3100433359:

/begin_quote/

PROBLEM
Although autoboot is turned 'on', it does not work for the mirrored vg00. It has also been verified that the alternate bootpath is properly set.

Why doesn't the autoboot work?

CONFIGURATION
Operating System - HP-UX
Version - 11.0
Hardware System - HP9000
Series - D370
Subsystem - System Administration

RESOLUTION
autoboot does not work because neither the D-, K-, or T-Class servers can autoboot from an alternate path. These servers can only autoboot from the default path (8/4/5).

To resolve the problem:

1. Change the primary path to 8/8.

2. Change the alternate path to 8/4/5.

Once these changes are made, the system will autoboot when the primary path is unavailable.

/end_quote/

Regards!

...JRF...

[Tim D Fulford]

I've had this type of problem. My cause was

FirmWare revision & My mirror disk was on a HASS & not on the internal bus.

Check with HP. It sounds like you've done most things right as you can boot directly from the mirror.

If you do all of the above you should be OK?

Tim

[Christopher E Chaves]

Thank you all for your help. All of your input was very helpful. Turns out James hit the nail on the head. Upon grilling the admin who had configured this sytem before me, I discovered that he did indeed, have this problem as well, even though he told me prior that he hadn't. Given the purpose of the server, there is no need to swap the devies so that it will boot to the mirrored disk automatically. It will be acceptable to be able to boot from the boot_admin menu. Thanks again.