Ignite-UX Administration Guide for HP-UX 11i (B3921-90079, October 2013)

E Expert Recovery
With expert recovery, you can repair aspects of the operating system on a damaged root disk
using an Ignite-UX server or HP-UX OE media to boot the system. There are minor differences in
message content between using a server or media, but the process is functionally identical. When
using media, enabling and using networking is strictly optional.
Expert recovery can be useful if your system should become compromised or corrupt and will not
boot to a login prompt, or if the system boots but critical operating system files are corrupted. At
that point, it might be useful to restore system elements made available by booting from an Ignite-UX
server or OE media.
While it might be possible to repair LVM and VxVM problems, that would require in-depth
knowledge of those subsystems and is not documented here.
Expert recovery is not useful in recovering from hardware failures.
Expert Recovery Preparation
The more you know about the system disk and its layout before you encounter major damage or
corruption, the easier it will be for you to recover.
Much of this information, including file system types, can be obtained by accessing your online
system manifest, either using Ignite-UX or by reading the hardcopy that came with your system.
Before you attempt to recover an HP-UX system, you should gather the following information:
• The version of HP-UX on the system you are attempting to recover.
IMPORTANT: The HP-UX version of the system to recover must match the HP-UX version on
the boot server or OE media. For example, use HP-UX 11i v1 (B.11.11) OE media to recover
an HP-UX 11i v1 (B.11.11) system.
• The hardware path of the root file system on the disk (that is, what file system you will be
checking/repairing using fsck.)
• Whether you have an LVM, VxVM, or whole-disk system.
The Expert Recovery Procedure
The following is an example procedure for using expert recovery. Depending on your version of
HP-UX, your disk layout, and whether the client is Integrity or PA-RISC, the details of these screens
might vary.
IMPORTANT: This procedure requires the commands fsck and mount running successfully on
the system disk.
Expert Recovery Preparation 239