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Old 06-07-2010, 01:48 PM   #1
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Texas
Distribution: Debian
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How to make a mirror of a HPUX boot drive

This is really going to be a long shot, but I am not sure where else to turn. If anyone knows of any other forums more suited to HPUX (especially OLDER hardware/versions), please direct me there....

I am the sysadmin of a university dept - I have a prof who uses an older HP Apollo 425T running HPUX v8. He is wanting to create a mirror image of his boot drive for disaster recovery purposes (not that this would help if something else goes wrong on this computer, but that's beside the point).

In a followup post, I will post the instructions that one of his grad students came up with back in 2001 (yes, 9 years ago). They followed these instructions, and it seemed to make the mirror - but when they try to boot from the disk, it starts to boot then fails.

Q1: any idea what might be causing this and/or suggestions on how to get it to boot?

Q2: are there better solutions for creating a bootable disk mirror (note that there is no CD drive in this machine, so using Clonezilla doesn't seem to be a viable option...).
Old 06-07-2010, 01:49 PM   #2
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Texas
Distribution: Debian
Posts: 41

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Here are the instructions that were created back in 2001....

[Using HP 400 series with Unix version 8]
(written in Fall 2001)

_____________________MIRRORING A HARD DISK_______________________

- connect a new hard drive and set jumpers to unused "Bus Address" (SCSI port)

- to find information about SCSI ports in use type the command:

- also look through the file /etc/checklist
there check if the
WARRNING: do not run sam, possibly it will just mess things up

- write down needed numbers
on HP-Ux8 drive the Select Code is 14 (which is E in hexadecimal)
Bus Address == SCSI port of the device
this information will be corresponding to device file:
which corresponds to a device on SCSI port 3

- install the hard drive
|(1) create device files (fast):
| mknod /dev/rdsk/_s0 c 47 0x_0_00
| mknod /dev/dsk/_s0 b 7 0x_0_00
| the first number (before "s") in device file name is the "bus address";
| look for files that have a matching "selection code" and "bus address";
| the commands to see device file information set on the computer are:
| cd /dev/dsk/
| ls -lrt
| cd /dev/rdsk/
| ls -lrt
| the single letter option:
| c -> stands for character device
| b -> stands for block device
| major numbers are: 7 for block devices, and 47 for character devices
| for a drive on SCSI port 3 the commands look like this:
| mknod /dev/rdsk/3s0 c 47 0xE0300
| mknod /dev/dsk/3s0 b 7 0xE0300
| the hexadecimal number at the end corresponds to:
| 0x_0_0_
| | | | |
| | | | +-- the number after 's' in device file name
| | | +--- SCSI port number
| | +-- selection code (E == 14 for our machine)
| +-- hexadecimal number
| note: selection code is a machine dependent number
| in lab one machine has selection code E==14
| the other has selection code F==15
|(2) initialize the media (slow ~1 hour):
| mediainit -v /dev/rdsk/_s0
| things to check: needs to be a character device file
| mediainit -v /dev/rdsk/3s0
|(3) add entries to /etc/disktab:
| look through the /etc/disktab
| see if an entry for the drive you're installing already exists
| to find an entry look for the brand and number of the hard drive
| (printed on the hard drive)
| our hard drive was a Micropolis 4110 1Gigabyte drive and its entries were:
| MICROP_4110_noswapboot:\
| :No swap or boot:ns#57:nt#9:nc#1999:\
| :s0#1025487:b0#8192:f0#1024:\
| :se#512:rm#5400:
| MICROP_4110_100MB:\
| :100 MB reserved for swap & boot:ns#57:nt#9:nc#1800:\
| :s0#923400:b0#8192:f0#1024:\
| :se#512:rm#5400:
| information: ns== number of sectors (average per track)
| nt== number of tracks (physical heads)
| nc== number of cylinders
| s0== size available; for no swap or boot s0=ns*nt*nc; kbytes
| b0== block size (max?); 8k
| f0== block size (min?); 1k
| se== sector size; 512
| rm== the rpm speed of the drive
| note1: do not put any additional spaces in after ":",
| but make sure that each line after first is indented
| note2: the operating system might not support a drive if it's too large
| it might be possible to upgrade the system
| if not, just use a smaller drive
| version 8 had no problems recognizing a 1GB drive
|(4) make the file system (fast):
| newfs /dev/rdsk/_s0 ~~~~~~~~
| the "~~~~~~~~" indicates an entry from /etc/disktab that you want to use
| in case of our drive it looke like this:
| newfs /dev/rdsk/3s0 MICROP_4110_noswapboot
|(5) create mount directory (fast):
| mkdir /hdsk2
| you can pick a different directory name
| make sure that such directory is not used by the computer already
|(6) mount the file system:
| in our case it was:
| mount /dev/dsk/3s0 /hdsk2
|(7) edit /etc/checklist
| if you want the disk to be mounted automatically at boot time
| to do so for our drive the following line was added:
| /dev/dsk/3s0 /hdsk2 hfs rw,swid 0 2 0
| the format for checklist entry is:
| /dev/dsk/___ /____ ___ __,__,__ _ _ 0
| | | | \ | / | |
| | | | \|/ | +- pass number
| | | | | +- backup frequency
| | | | +- options (separate with commas)
| | | +- type
| | +- directory (where to mount)
| +- device file name
| the possible values for pass number are: 1== root file
| 1< other
| 0== don't check with fsck

after these steps the hard drive is installed and mounted on directory /hdsk2
by typing "bdf" you can see the sizes and mount directories of both drives,
new drive should be mostly empty

- now copy the old drive contents onto the new drive
use command:

dump 0f - /dev/root | ( cd /hdsk2; restore xf - )

this command works for same-size and unequal-size drives
(as long as destination drive is larger)
make sure to keep the spaces the same as in the example above

ABSOLUTELY DO NOT use "dd" command if your drives are not the same size

- now you have a mirrored copy of the old drive on the new drive
- to use new drive (containing the mirrored copy of the old drive):
turn the computer off and remove the old drive
change the jumpers on the new drive,
so they are set up for the same SCSI port as the old drive
plug in the new drive where the old drive was
turn the computer on and it should recognize the new drive
the computer should perform the same way with the new drive
as if it had the old drive

Commands for using HP 400 series with Unix version 9:
(our case: Select code=15=F
bus address=3
note: these are only commands,
when working with version 9 you should also
edit /etc/disktab entries
and edit /etc/checklist entries)

| mknod /dev/rdsk/cFd3s0 c 47 0xE0300
| mknod /dev/dsk/cFd3s0 b 7 0xE0300
| mediainit -v /dev/rdsk/cFd3s0
| newfs /dev/rdsk/cFd3s0 MICROP_4110_noswapboot
| mkdir /hdsk2
| mount /dev/dsk/cFd3s0 /hdsk2
Old 06-15-2010, 07:24 AM   #3
Registered: Mar 2007
Location: Albuquerque, NM
Distribution: Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu
Posts: 46

Rep: Reputation: 15
Originally Posted by CNBarnes View Post
Do you have another machine that you can mount this drive in and run clonezilla from there? I know It's a pain in the ..., but it would work. That is what I had to do when cloning an NTFS partition to the Bootcamp Partition on my Macbook, because Acronis lacks the proper drivers to do so on the MBP. At least it's worth a shot.
Old 06-16-2010, 08:34 AM   #4
LQ Newbie
Registered: Jun 2010
Distribution: RHEL5
Posts: 2

Rep: Reputation: 1
try posting your question at - the hp-ux experts there include hp staff who have written and worked on every hp-ux version there has ever been.
Old 06-16-2010, 08:55 AM   #5
Registered: Apr 2004
Location: Texas
Distribution: Debian
Posts: 41

Original Poster
Rep: Reputation: 15
Thank you Bright. I'm going to bet that those guys will be able to help me.



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