"bad LIF magic" error during restore with Ignite

[U. Kaan Sönal]

Hello,
I have an HP-UX 11i. HP support confirmed that, my boot disk is out of order and the mirror is corrupted, so I have to get the system up by Ignite backup. But the problem is that, tapes are messed up some how. I can not be sure if any of the tapes have Ignite backup.
I boot the system, interrupt it, search for boot devices, see the tape and try to boot with "bo p". The I get the message :

Booting...
Boot IO Dependent Code (IODC) revision 1

IPL error: bad LIF magic.
.... FAILED.

Does that mean the tape is not an Ignite backup tape? Please say no!

[Steven Protter]

Shalom,

It could mean that the tape is not an ignite tape, it could mean that the tape is simply no good.

Have you made sure the replacement disk is good and tried another tape.

On some older systems, you may need to detach the system from Fiber storage prior to an Ignite backup restoring properly.

Have the tapes ever been tested in a restore?

Are you certain you have booted off a sequential tape device?


SEP

[Mridul Shrivastava]

To solve this problem try running a cleaning tape through the tape drive
and try booting again (see warning below).

If this does not fix the problem, you can check whether the really tape
contains a LIF area using the Ignite/UX command "copy_boot_tape". More
information on the copy_boot_tape command can be can be found in the man
page copy_boot_tape(1m).

An example to determine if the tape can be booted from (This assumes that
there is directory called /tmp/ignitetest and it contains at least 20Mb of
free space):

# copy_boot_tape -u /dev/rmt/0mn -b -d /tmp/ignitetest
Rewinding tape /dev/rmt/0mn.
Extracting the boot area to /tmp/ignitetest/bootimage.
14242+1 records in
14242+1 records out
Boot file contents.
volume ISL10 data size 281239 directory size 3
filename type start size implement created
===============================================================
ISL -12800 16 240 0 00/07/26 08:45:17
AUTO -12289 256 1 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
INDEX BIN 264 1 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
CONFIG BIN 272 26 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
HPUX -12928 304 880 0 00/07/26 08:45:18
INSTALL -12290 1184 25354 0 00/07/26 08:45:25
INSTALLFS -12290 26544 31744 0 00/07/26 08:45:32
FWWKAR BIN 58288 1 0 00/07/26 08:45:32
INSTCMDS BIN 58296 10154 0 00/07/26 08:45:35
SYSCMDS BIN 68456 45435 0 00/07/26 08:45:45
SCRIPTS BIN 113896 41 0 00/07/26 08:45:45

Rewinding and ejecting /dev/rmt/0mn.

The example tape contains a LIF area and should be bootable. If there is a
problem with this area, you should see output similar to the following:

# copy_boot_tape -u /dev/rmt/0mn -b -d /tmp/ignitetest
Rewinding tape /dev/rmt/0mn.
Extracting the boot area to /tmp/ignitetest/bootimage.
0+2 records in
0+2 records out
Boot file contents.
lifls: Can't list /tmp/ignitetest//bootimage; not a LIF volume
ERROR: lif image corrupted. Tape heads may need cleaning.

Warning: The tape drive only be cleaned according to the cleaning
instructions applicable to the tape drive. A DDS tape drive should be cleaned
2-3 times in this situation (especially pre DDS3 tape drives). DLT tape
drives should never be cleaned unless the cleaning light is on.