AIX upgrade to 5.3 - No migration option available 2

[penny260]

I have an IBM 7028-6E4 (P630) running AIX 5.2 ML1 and tried to upgrade it to 5.3 ML3 by booting from the software CD's. It booted OK, but didn't give the option for a Migration upgrade, only a Preservation or a New and Complete Install. I got the same result with rootvg mirrored and also unmirrored and the results from these diagnostics look OK.

# /usr/lpp/bosinst/blvset -d /dev/hdisk1 -g level
5.2
# dd if=/dev/hd5 bs=512 count=2 of=/tmp/blv.lst
2+0 records in.
2+0 records out.
# strings /tmp/blv.lst |grep string
5.2 pad string%$#~!~~!~#$%@

The system firmware is IBM,RG060626_d79e17_r

I've seen notes about problems migrating AIX versions on machines with a large amount of disk attached, but nothing which says what the limit is before hitting the problem. This machine has four fully populated SSA disk towers so has 2 internal root disks and 64 SSA disks.

I'm going to try the upgrade again with the SSA disks detached, but would appreciate any advice or suggestions beforehand which may save a wasted journey as the machine isn't located in our datacentre.

 

[DukeSSD]

You seem to have covered the likely problem, the pad string.

Did you check for ghost disks, etc?

http://www-1.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=isg3T1000302

Otherwise, take the trip, I've had one like this recently. Took the SSA disks off and it was fine.

 

[penny260]

Yes, I ran lqueryvg -Atp on the two rootvg disks and everything looked OK.

I'm pretty sure the problem is a limit of 64 disks and I've just been unlucky that I have 66.
I'll take your advice and disconnect the SSA disks before trying the upgrade again.

Thanks for your assistance.

 

[hfaix]

Update to this thread:

I ran into this same problem this morning on a 7028-6C4 ->P630 upgrading from AIX 5.2 ML2 (old I know) to AIX 5.3 TL5 from media (cd). The only option I had was "new and completed", not even preservation. Our server also had 66 drives (2 rootvg, 64 datavg).

As penny260 thought, the resolution was disconnect the SSA disks and try again. Once this was done, I had the migration option and the upgrade went successfully.

 

[penny260]

I can confirm that the upgrade completed successfully after a couple of further problems.

1. I migrated all the data off one SSA tower and then disconnected it as I thought the upgrade would work if I only had 2 root disks and 48 SSA disks, but no such luck. After booting from the CD, I got the message "There are no disks available on this system", but it was OK after powering off all the SSA towers.

2. The second problem was when the machine rebooted at the end of the upgrade and hung up on LED display 078c. Resetting the machine and rebooting stuck at the same point.
IBM said this was a known problem upgrading to AIX 5.3 and the resolution was to interrupt the boot at the Open Firmware prompt and change the value of real-base.

The procedure was :-

setenv real-base c00000
dev /
reset-all


The machine will reboot shortly after this, but I had to reboot twice before it worked. It's advisable to make a note of the value before changing it by typing printenv at the open firmware prompt.

I hope this helps anyone else who hits the same problem.

 

[KenCunningham]

A star for posting the solution. What a botch from someone as respected as IBM!

I want to be good, is that not enough?