VERITAS Volume Manager 4.1 Troubleshooting Guide

Recovery from Boot Disk Failure
Recovery by Booting from Recovery Media
Chapter 3
48
Recovery by Booting from Recovery Media
If there is a failure to boot from the VxVM boot disk on HP-UX 11i, and no bootable root
mirror is available, it may be necessary to boot from an alternate boot source, or from
recovery media such as the following:
• HP-UX 11i installation CD.
• Bootable recovery tape.
• Secondary boot disk in the configuration.
• HP-UX Ignite-UX server that is accessible over a LAN.
There are several problems that can only be repaired if the system is booted from
recovery media. These problems include:
• The HP-UX kernel is corrupted or non-bootable.
• Files required for booting are missing, such as:
— /stand/ioconfig file.
— Device files in /dev/vx.
• Corrupted LIF area on the boot disk.
Detailed information on how to recover from these and many other failures is
documented in the “Expert Recovery Using the Core Media” section of the Ignite-UX
Administration Guide. (See “Introduction” on page 46 for information on how to access
this book on the HP documentation web site.)
If these methods fail, use the procedures described in “Recovery by Reinstallation” on
page 52.
Starting VxVM after Booting from Recovery Media
You can use the vx_emerg_start utility to start VxVM after booting a system from
recovery media. This command allows a rootable VxVM configuration to be repaired in
the event of a catastrophic failure. The command is invoked as shown here:
# vx_emerg_start hostname
The hostname argument specifies the name (node name) of the system that you are
repairing. This name must match the name of the system that you are repairing, because
it is unlikely to be recorded on the recovery media from which you booted the system.
Recovering the Root Volume After VxVM Emergency Startup
After you have used vx_emerg_start to start VxVM, use the vxprint command to
determine the configuration state.
One common problem is that all the plexes of the root volume, rootvol, are stale. This
would be shown in the STATE field of the vxprint output as follows: