AIX / VIOS / Linux installation issue with CCIN 578F (FC EN1C, EN1D, EL5X, EL5W), CCIN 578E (FC EN1A, EN1B,EL5U, EL5V) and 577F (FC EN0A, EN0B) installed:

In order to bypass the Fibre Channel adapter scan at initial boot, a work-around can be performed:

1. Shut down the partition
2. Change the partition's profile to remove all CCIN 577F, 578E, or 578F Fibre Channel adapters
Other IO adapters and network cards can be left in the partition profile.  **See note if the partition is an All Resources partition.
3. Activate the partition from HMC, being sure to explicitly activate from the updated partition profile.
4. If there is no console terminal opened, the boot process should seem to wait at either a reference code of AA00E158 or AA00E1A9.  If the console is opened, the boot finishes to the SMS menus.  If the partition boot stops with a BA21xxxx reference code, there is likely still a problem that needs to be addressed.
5. Once boot process stops at the wait on AA00E158 or AA00E1A9 or at the SMS menu, a default boot list should have been created, and the partition should be shut down.
6. Modify the partition profile to add one or more desired Fibre Channel adapters back in to the configuration.
7. Activate the partition, being sure to specify the partition profile with the Fibre Channel adapters present.
8. Make sure the partition boot does not stop with a BA21xxxx type error.  The boot should go to SMS (if the console is opened) or to a wait at AA00E158 or AA00E1A9 (if the console is not opened).  Once a console is opened and SMS is reached, the OS installation process can be started.

**note:  If the partition is configured as an All Resources partition ('Assign all system resources' selected on partition creation or this is the default All Resources partition), you cannot remove the adapter(s) from the configuration to perform the work-around steps.  Another partition will need to be created.  It can be configured with all resources (except for the Fiber Channel Adapters), and follow steps 3-8.  Until all Fibre Channel adapter microcode levels are updated, All Resource partition boots will fail, due to the problem microcode failing before the default list is created.

**note:  If the server is a true stand-alone, with no HMC attached or managing the server, the affected adapter types would need to be physically removed from the server temporarily, to perform a system boot to the SMS menu.  That is sufficient to set the initial bootlist without these adapters being queried.  The server can then be shut off, adapters re-installed, and then boot to SMS again, and install as normal.

Fibre Channel Adapter microcode 12.4.257.15 addresses this issue:

A separate issue was found in 12.4.257.15 and 12.4.257.27 that has the same symptoms, and the same work-around.  It is fixed in 12.4.257.30 and later.

The work-around is still needed for adapters that were shipped with the failing microcode, and where there are no active partitions to be able to load the new microcode to the adapter.