Move boot disk to different H/W Path

[Keith Clark]

Hello All,

Hypothetical situation:

Let's say you booted off of a scsi disk at H/W path 1/8/0/0 and the card in 1/8/0/0 died. What would you need to do in order to move the boot disk to a spare scsi card that you had in 0/12/0/0 and successfully boot?

Thanks,

Keith

[Pete Randall]

Keith,

I'd put a call in to HP Hardware Support and have them replace 1/8/0/0. Failing that, I'd move 0/12/0/0 to 1/8/0/0 and boot as usual off that.

Pete

[Keith Clark]

Let's say for some hypothetical reason you can't move the card or replace it.

[Eugeny Brychkov]

Keith,
I think it's simpler to move card from 0/12/0/0 to 1/8/0/0 (if possible) to save all hardware paths
Eugeny

[Leif Halvarsson_2]

Hi,
This is not possible, I tested on a A400 server and boot fails if the disk is moved to another hardware path.

[James Odak]

did you ever back the system up with an ignite?

if so, boot from the ignite tape and recover to the spare card

otherwise without having previously mirrored, i can't think of any other way ...

this may be a bit off but if your interested in why

you can boot from any path BUT when you boot from that path it read the vmunix file i believe .. this file then tells it where to find the kernel and system info BUT via the original path

and again i may be off on that

[Alfredo Moralejo_2]

I??m not sure but, you can try to boot in maintenance mode, hpux -lm from ISL whith the disk in the new position. I think it could work.

[Ravi_8]

Hi, keith

If you move the boot disk to another path, system wouldn't boot, even if you change the boot path. since the bootinfo looking into lvmtab file. Best way is replacing the faulty scsi card

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi Keith:

If you move the disk its corresponding device file will differ. This can be handled by a 'vgexport' and subsequent 'vgimport' in order to associate the new device filw with the volume.

The procedure for changing the hardware address of a disk is described in the Software Recovery Handbook (chapter-16, LVM):

http://www2.itrc.hp.com/service/iv/docDisplay.do?docId=/DE_SW_UX_swrec_EN_01_E/LVM.pdf

Regards!

...JRF...

[Keith Clark]

Thanks James,

Does this apply to vg00? Can I boot up "hpux -lm" and vgexport/vgimport vg00?

I don't have to deal with bootconf or ioinit?

Thanks,

Keith

[Keith Clark]

Hi James,

I think I was a little premature in assigning points. I should have read the entire document first. Could you please acknowledge this message so that I can assign you the appropriate points. I really appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Keith

[James R. Ferguson · Accepted solution]

Hi Keith:

You're very welcome. The Software Recovery Handbook I cited offers an excellent compendium of recipies and insights to various topics. HP should be commended for providing it.

Regards!

...JRF...

[Pramod_4]

Hi Keith,

James is right.

You need to boot your system in LVM maintenance mode by using "hpux -lm" command at the ISL prompt.

Do a vgexport:
# vgexport -v -m /vg00.map vg00

DO a vgimport:
#vgimport -v -m /vg00.map vg00 /dev/dsk/

Remember that you must update the BDRA with new HW path and device file.

# lvlnboot -R

There may be a situation that your / gets attached with "/dev/root" file instead of /dev/vg00/lvol1.

I can confirm that I used this method it works.

Good luck,

Pramod

[whairst]

I'm having the same issue but with a twist. We'd like to be able to move a disk from a failed computer (ex. motherboard failure) to a different machine, but the hardware address is different. The disk is the only one in the machine, and (clearly) contains the root volume. Running "hpux -lm" with the disk in the new machine causes a kernel panic ("LVM: Activation of root volume group failed"), but doing "hpux ll" works.

Is there a way to tell the disk what its new hardware address is, so it'll work in the new machine, even though "hpux -lm" fails?

Note: We're exploring this as an option in case there's a failure, rather than dealing with a failure at the moment. I put the disk back in the original machine, and it booted fine.