IBM AIX 7.1 – Common Problem 243 – Diagnosis and Fix

📖 ~1 min read

Table of contents

1. Symptom & Impact
2. Environment & Reproduction
3. Root Cause Analysis
4. Quick Triage
5. Step-by-Step Diagnosis
6. Solution – Primary Fix
7. Solution – Alternative Approaches
8. Verification & Acceptance Criteria
9. Rollback Plan
10. Prevention & Hardening
11. Related Errors & Cross-Refs
12. References & Further Reading

Symptom & Impact

alt_disk_mksysb or installation from mksysb fails with 0512-xxx errors.

Environment & Reproduction

Hit when restoring across hardware levels, missing filesets, or bad tape/NIM image.

Root Cause Analysis

mksysb image and target hardware ODM differ, or device driver filesets are missing.

Quick Triage

Inspect /var/adm/ras/devinst.log and bosinst.data on the source media.

Step-by-Step Diagnosis

Verify the mksysb with lsmksysb -lf or list_image and check NIM definitions.

Solution – Primary Fix

Update bosinst.data with correct ACCEPT_LICENSES and BOSINST_LANG then retry.

Solution – Alternative Approaches

Use alt_disk_install -BC and restore from a NIM resource updated with current devices.

Verification & Acceptance Criteria

alt_rootvg boots cleanly and lppchk -v returns no errors after the restore.

Rollback Plan

Re-activate the original rootvg via bootlist and reboot to revert.

Prevention & Hardening

Refresh mksysb regularly and keep NIM SPOT in sync with running TL/SP.

Related Errors & Cross-Refs

Related to bosboot failures, ODM corruption, and unsupported hardware levels.

Related tutorial: View the step-by-step tutorial for aix-7.1.

View all aix-7.1 tutorials on the Tutorials Hub →

Browse all common problems & solutions on the Tutorials Hub.

References & Further Reading

IBM AIX 7.2 mksysb and alt_disk_install documentation.