Booting from hard disk for maintenance

You can boot a machine in maintenance mode from a hard disk.

Prerequisites

A bootable removable media (tape or CD-ROM) must not be in the drive. Also, refer to the hardware documentation for the specific instructions to enable maintenance mode boot on your particular model.

Procedure

To boot a machine in maintenance mode from a hard disk:

  1. To reboot, either turn the machine off and then power it back on, or press the reset button.
  2. Press the key sequence for rebooting in maintenance mode that is specified in your hardware documentation.
  3. The machine will boot to a point where it has a console device configured.
    If there is a system dump that needs to be retrieved, the system dump menu will be displayed on the console.
    Note:
    1. If the console fails to configure when there is a dump to be retrieved, the system will hang. The system must be booted from a removable medium to retrieve the dump.
    2. The system automatically dumps to the specified dump device when the reset button is pressed. To change the primary or secondary dump device designation in a running system, see the sysdumpdev command.
  4. If there is no system dump, or if it has been copied, the diagnostic operating instructions will be displayed. Press Enter to continue to the Function Selection menu.
  5. From the Function Selection menu, you can select diagnostic or single-user mode:

    Single-User Mode: To perform maintenance in a single-user environment, choose this option (option 5). The system continues to boot and enters single-user mode. Maintenance that requires the system to be in a standalone mode can be performed in this mode, and the bosboot command can be run, if required.