There are times when an encapsulated boot disk can't be used to bring up VxVM. In cases where the private region is corrupted the following error message appears during boot up:

vxvm: vxconfigd: ERROR: Cannot start rootvol volume, no valid plexes

In addition,  the boot disk is mirrored and there are other disks and volumes in rootdg. There are also disks and volumes in disk groups other than rootdg.  There are no  data volumes using the boot disk.

The following is a suggested recovery procedure for such cases:

1. boot off of cdrom into single user
  ok> boot cdrom -s

2. mount the root partition on /a
  example:  # mount /dev/dsk/c0t0d0s0 /a

3. modify the following files to manually unencapsulate the root disk:

 a. touch /a/etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/install-db ( This step is not required for Volume Manager 4.0 and above)
 b. modify /a/etc/vfstab to show original Solaris partitions before Volume Manager was installed (vfstab.prevm).
 c. modify /a/etc/system so that the following lines show as:

    *rootdev:/pseudo/vxio@0:0
    *set vxio:vol_rootdev_is_volume_=1


4. reboot the system

5. zero out the partitions with tags 14 and 15 on the root disk using format. prtvtoc will show these tags. See below for the prtvtoc output:

5a) # prtvtoc /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2
* /dev/rdsk/c0t0d0s2 partition map
*
* Dimensions:
*     512 bytes/sector
*     255 sectors/track
*      16 tracks/cylinder
*    4080 sectors/cylinder
*   57461 cylinders
*   57459 accessible cylinders
*
* Flags:
*   1: unmountable
*  10: read-only
*
* Unallocated space:
*       First     Sector    Last
*       Sector     Count    Sector
*   199230480 18446744073510321136 18446744073709551615
*   234432720 18446744073674349376 199230479
*   220205760  14218800 234424559
*
*                          First     Sector    Last
* Partition  Tag  Flags    Sector     Count    Sector  Mount Directory
      0      2    00          0 199230480 199230479
      1      3    01  199230480  20975280 220205759
      2      5    00          0 234432720 234432719
      3     14    01          0 234432720 234432719
      4     15    01  234424560      8160 234432719

5b) Use format to zero out the partitions with tags 14 and 15 in the aforementioned prtvtoc:

# format

Searching for disks...done

AVAILABLE DISK SELECTIONS:
      0. c0t0d0
         /pci@1e,600000/ide@d/dad@0,0

 

5c) Select the disk:

Specify disk (enter its number): 0
selecting c0t0d0
[disk formatted, no defect list found]
FORMAT MENU:
       disk       - select a disk
       type       - select (define) a disk type
       partition  - select (define) a partition table
       current    - describe the current disk
       format     - format and analyze the disk
       repair     - repair a defective sector
       show       - translate a disk address
       label      - write label to the disk
       analyze    - surface analysis
       defect     - defect list management
       backup     - search for backup labels
       verify     - read and display labels
       save       - save new disk/partition definitions
       volname    - set 8-character volume name
       !     - execute , then return
       quit

5d) Select  partition:

format> p


PARTITION MENU:
       0      - change `0' partition
       1      - change `1' partition
       2      - change `2' partition
       3      - change `3' partition
       4      - change `4' partition
       5      - change `5' partition
       6      - change `6' partition
       7      - change `7' partition
       select - select a predefined table
       modify - modify a predefined partition table
       name   - name the current table
       print  - display the current table
       label  - write partition map and label to the disk
       ! - execute , then return
       quit

5e) Print the partition:

partition> p
Current partition table (original):
Total disk cylinders available: 57459 + 2 (reserved cylinders)

Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders         Size            Blocks
 0       root    wm       0 - 48830       95.00GB    (48831/0/0) 199230480
 1       swap    wu   48831 - 53971       10.00GB    (5141/0/0)   20975280
 2     backup    wm       0 - 57458      111.79GB    (57459/0/0) 234432720
 3          -    wu       0 - 57458      111.79GB    (57459/0/0) 234432720
 4          -    wu   57457 - 57458        3.98MB    (2/0/0)          8160
 5 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
 6 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0
 7 unassigned    wm       0                0         (0/0/0)             0

partition>

5f) Zero out partition 3 and 4 by doing the following:

partition> 3
Part      Tag    Flag     Cylinders         Size            Blocks
 3 unassigned    wm       1 -  5120        9.96GB    (5120/0/0)   20889600

Enter partition id tag[unassigned]:
Enter partition permission flags[wm]:
Enter new starting cyl[1]:
Enter partition size[20889600b, 5120c, 5120e, 10200.00mb, 9.96gb]: 0

6. rm /etc/vx/reconfig.d/state.d/install-db

7. run the following:
 
 # vxiod set 10
 # vxconfigd -d
 # vxdctl init
 # vxdctl enable

8. reboot the system

9. remove the encapsulated volumes from rootdg that are using the rootdisk (check using vxprint -htg rootdg). These volumes must be removed to avoid duplication when the  partitions become volumes during encapsulation in Step 12. Prior to removing any of these volumes, please make sure we don't have any data volumes other than OS boot relevant partition, if that is the case, please contact Veritas Technical support, as removing data volumes meaning it will also remove data from it. 

 

 For example:

 # vxedit -rf rm rootvol
 # vxedit -rf rm swapvol  
 ... etc.

10. Remove the rootdisk from rootdg using vxdiskadm option 3. Make sure that there is still at least one disk remaining in rootdg. The rootdisk will be added back into rootdg  during encapsulation in Step 12.

11. Use vxdiskadm option 2 to encapsulate the boot disk. Interactively assign the name 'rootdisk'.

12. reboot the system

13. After rebooting the system,  the mirror disk can be added into rootdg and use vxdiskadm option 6 to mirror the volumes.