How to repair/fix Boot Logical Volume (BLV) in AIX

If a Boot Logical volume (BLV) is corrupted, a machine will not boot.

(e.g.: bad block in a disk might cause a corrupted BLV)

To fix this situation, You must boot your machine in maintenance mode, from a CD or Tape. If a NIM has been setup for a machine, you can also boot the machine from a NIM master in maintenance mode.

It's important that you do a proper shutdown, All changes need to be written from memory to disk.

#shutdown –Fr now

Step # 1

If you have an HMC, then at the time of booting select boot as SMS in the properties of that partition.

Then start Maintenance Mode for system recovery, Access rootvg, access this volume group to start a shell, then recreate BLV using bosboot command

#bosboot -ad /dev/hdisk0

Step # 2

Imp: bosboot command requires that boot logical volume hd5 exists. If it had been deleted by mistake, then create a BLV and do the following,

2. Create a new hd5 logical volume, one PP size, must be in rootvg,specify boot as logical volume type,

# mklv -y hd5 -t boot rootvg 1        Create hd5 logical volume

Note: Use the above command if hd5 does not exist.

Step # 3

# bosboot -ad /dev/hdisk0             Transfer the bootable image

# ipl_varyon –i                       Verify bootable image

# bootlist –m normal –o hdisk0 hdisk1 Check the bootlist

# sync; sync; sync;                   Sync changes

# reboot                              Reboot the machine

# sync ⤶

# sync ⤶

# sync ⤶

# reboot ⤶