rx2660 with raid controller - create backup disk

[ferrell.scott]

We are required to create a backup of our primary boot disk on our two (HP) server systems. We have had no difficulty in the past (using dd command on rx4640 servers); however, recently we purchased rx2660 servers with RAID controllers. We can create 2 RAID0 disks and clone from the primary disk to the backup disk but we cannot get the backup disk to boot regardless of what we try (remove primary disk, move backup disk to primary disk location, etc.). We were told that we can use Ignite to create a golden image of the primary disk on another server; however, we must account for the possibility of both servers losing their primary disk (power surge perhaps) which would eliminate Ignite as a backup.
What I need to know is whether we can create a bootable backup disk using the RAID controller and how. There must be a way we can remove the file that tells the system which disk to use and remake that file pointing to our new system disk. Also, if that is not possible or perhaps this is easier... how do we make the rx2660 become SCSI controlled instead of RAID controlled? Is it as simple as removing the RAID controller card?
We have spent a lot of time attempting backups and fixing mistakes caused by resolving this issue it's not even funny! In the future, we plan on purchasing HP servers with SCSI controllers!
Thank you in advance,
Scott

[Jur van der Burg]

Looks like this is a HP UX question. Try the HP UX forum instead of the OpenVMS forum.

Jur.

[marsh_1]

hi,

this is an openvms forum, this thread would be better served in the hp-ux or integrity server forum.

[Hoff]

What operating system is involved here?

dd and "gold image" and "ignite" and the use of separate primary disks and not a cluster all tend to imply this is HP-UX, and the current discussion forum is a discussion forum centering on the OpenVMS operating system. Not HP-UX.

With OpenVMS, BACKUP /IMAGE is the usual command used to create a copy of a disk, and that can be restored and booted regardless of the underlying RAID controller or such.

And if you want to discuss the potential for controller-level replication, you'll want to mention which RAID controllers, as HP has a number of those. PCI-based and SCSI-based and SAN-based widgets are all available.

[ferrell.scott]

i have moved this thread to hp-ux forum.
thanks,
scott