Booting an AIX P5 550 and AIX 5.3

[Len Smith]

I recently received an P5 550 and installed AIX 5.3 from the CD onto
hdisk 0. I cannot however get the machine to boot of hdisk0 after the
install. I can verify the OS was installed and available by booting
into service mode, via the CD, and accessing hdisk0. But whenever I
try to boot I get to the "Welcome to AIX" banner and the LED shows
something along the lines of "Starting kernel" and then it just hangs
there.

I've put in service requests and had the machine looked at but so far
no luck. Does anyone have any experience or can reccomend somethings
to try?

The machine is configured as a single LPAR, and all access is via
serial S1. There is no HMC console.

Thanks,
Len

[Douglas R. Probst]

Post by Len Smith
I recently received an P5 550 and installed AIX 5.3 from the CD onto
hdisk 0. I cannot however get the machine to boot of hdisk0 after the
install. I can verify the OS was installed and available by booting
into service mode, via the CD, and accessing hdisk0. But whenever I
try to boot I get to the "Welcome to AIX" banner and the LED shows
something along the lines of "Starting kernel" and then it just hangs
there.
I've put in service requests and had the machine looked at but so far
no luck. Does anyone have any experience or can reccomend somethings
to try?
The machine is configured as a single LPAR, and all access is via
serial S1. There is no HMC console.
Thanks,
Len

Dude, at this point you are the Expert with this server and OS. I would say
you are surfing on the pulsing artery of technology.
Let us know what you find out, we are still waiting for a copy of 5.3 and
won't see a new p5 for a while.
I would try the install again just for kicks.
Good luck
Doug

[Kevin Bowling]

Post by Len Smith
I recently received an P5 550 and installed AIX 5.3 from the CD onto
hdisk 0. I cannot however get the machine to boot of hdisk0 after the
install. I can verify the OS was installed and available by booting
into service mode, via the CD, and accessing hdisk0. But whenever I
try to boot I get to the "Welcome to AIX" banner and the LED shows
something along the lines of "Starting kernel" and then it just hangs
there.
I've put in service requests and had the machine looked at but so far
no luck. Does anyone have any experience or can reccomend somethings
to try?
The machine is configured as a single LPAR, and all access is via
serial S1. There is no HMC console.
Thanks,
Len

I'm no expert on this class of machine, but on my lowly 7012-39H and -397
(AIX 4.3.3), the service mode would boot up and work fine but I couldn't get
a login prompt on a normal boot (seems to be what you are experiencing?).
The cause: incomplete null modem cable. Your cable needs to be fully wired.
My intermittent solution was to use the service mode to get a shell, use
SMIT to configure networking and control the machine via telnet.
HTH,
Kevin Bowling

[sprunger]

Post by Len Smith
I recently received an P5 550 and installed AIX 5.3 from the CD onto
hdisk 0. I cannot however get the machine to boot of hdisk0 after the
install. I can verify the OS was installed and available by booting
into service mode, via the CD, and accessing hdisk0. But whenever I
try to boot I get to the "Welcome to AIX" banner and the LED shows
something along the lines of "Starting kernel" and then it just hangs
there.
I've put in service requests and had the machine looked at but so far
no luck. Does anyone have any experience or can reccomend somethings
to try?
The machine is configured as a single LPAR, and all access is via
serial S1. There is no HMC console.
Thanks,
Len

I'm no expert at 5.3 either. You installed (or reinstalled) AIX 5.3 on a
new 550 and the first
boot from disk didn't complete.

One of the things that happens in the first boot is install_assist wizard
(there is a gui and a ascii version).
I've had some success in previous versions with booting in maintenance mode
and commenting out
the line in /etc/inittab that launches the install assistant. Who needs a
wizard anyway? Don't reboot
yet! see below.

I also believe you could have some serial cable/terminal issues. I have had
success using smit
to change the terminal settings while still in maint mode. ADD ,clocal to
both tty attributes at startup and tty attributes at runtime, then scroll
all the way to the bottom of the menu and select
'apply change to the database only'. The changes will take effect on your
next boot. Go for it!

My last suggestion try power cycling the terminal after it hangs. You
didn't mention what you are using for a terminal....

[Michael Prix]

Post by Len Smith
I recently received an P5 550 and installed AIX 5.3 from the CD onto
hdisk 0. I cannot however get the machine to boot of hdisk0 after the
install. I can verify the OS was installed and available by booting
into service mode, via the CD, and accessing hdisk0. But whenever I
try to boot I get to the "Welcome to AIX" banner and the LED shows
something along the lines of "Starting kernel" and then it just hangs
there.

1.) Upgrade to microcode level -45 at least.
2.) Get IBM to send you the right copy of the "golden image" - the one that
works. There are several versions of the "golden image" within IBM, but to
my experience, only one really works in all aspects. My experience with a
p520 is, that IBM is not shipping an installable version of AIX 5.3 with
the machines. This is even more true, if you try to configure an I/O-Server
partition - so be alerted.