Veritas Volume Manager 4.1 Troubleshooting Guide (HP-UX 11i v3, February 2007)

Chapter 3, Recovery from Boot Disk Failure
Recovery by Reinstallation
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Caution The VxVM configuration daemon, vxconfigd, does not normally run in MMB
mode, and only one copy of the root volume data is used. If the system has a
mirrored root volume, writing to the root file system can thus cause file system
corruption when both mirrors are subsequently configured. To prevent this,
start VxVM in MMB mode by running the vx_emerg_start command. This
marks the non-boot mirror plexes as stale, and so forces a recovery from the
boot mirror to the non-boot mirrors to take place. After VxVM has been started
in MMB mode, various recovery options can be performed depending on the
nature of the problem. For more information, see the vx_emerg_start(1M)
manual page.
Recovery by Reinstallation
Note If you configured VxVM rootability by installing via Ignite-UX, consult the “System
Recovery” section of the Ignite-UX Administration Guide, before consulting this
section. In many instances, reinstalling from a saved Ignite-UX configuration is
sufficient to recover a failed boot disk.
Reinstallation is only necessary if all copies of your boot (root) disk are damaged, or if
certain critical files are lost due to file system damage. If these types of failures occur, any
volumes that are not directly involved in the failure do not need to be reconfigured. On an
HP-UX 11i version 2 system, it is preferable to use the recovery methods described in
“Recovery by Booting from a VxVM Root Disk Mirror” on page 31 and “Recovery by
Booting from Recovery Media” on page 32.