Originally posted by: SystemAdmin

Hi,

I am having problems booting from a mksysb which is on a dat tape. I am on aix 5.3 and I am trying to rebuild my system. Initially I was having issues interrupting the boot process, pressed esc and 5 and F5 and all other options but could not interrupt the sequence, I have console attached to the blue connector on back of my P550 machine ( on the right hand side) so i then changed my bootlist so that rmt0 was first instead of hdisk0 hoping that it would boot from the tape but it never did. I got to a screen where it asked me to set the console which I did but never gets to the screen where you tell it to boot from mksysb.

Any ideas on where I am going wrong. I have a feeling it is something to do with the console itself. My tape should be ok and the system is booting up ok.

Thanks for your help
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Originally posted by: alethad

You can boot from OS Volume #1 CD if your backup media fails to boot. You need to boot off the same version OS CD as what you're running on the system you are trying to restore. I guess you will need to change youre bootlist back to the CD for the 1st device.
The initial Welcome screen includes an option to enter a maintenance mode in which you should be able to continue the installation from your backup media.

I think with the p550's this is the now normal procedure. Boot off the OS CD volume #1 to get to the right system menu. At least when I got mine a few years ago that's what support told me.

Hope that helps.
Good luck.
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Originally posted by: CRM

Hi,

you have a console attached to the blue connector, this sounds like the graphics card? Is that the case?

The graphics console should work (as long as you have the X filesets installed) but it might be worth trying a proper ASCI terminal on the serial port if you can - any chance (can use a machine with a serial console and hyperterm/putty)? You could also use the HMC virtual console but I see no mention of an HMC - any reason?

Just FYI there is a new graphical installer with AIX 6.1 -

AIX Version 6.1 includes new improvements to the manageability of the AIX operating system. These enhancements include:

v NFSv4 support for the Network Installation Manager (NIM)

v Graphical Installation The AIX Graphical Installer provides a simplified, easy-to-use version of the AIX installer. Users are presented with a graphical user interface to start a system installation instead of the existing text-based installation menu. The Graphical installer is limited to users that boot DVD media on a system that does not have an existing operating system on its disks. If the installation code finds a root volume group on a disk, the traditional BOS menus are presented.
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