Boot Options - IBM p5 550 Technical Overview And Introduction

Note: The version of system firmware currently installed in your system is displayed at the
top of each screen. Processor and other device upgrades might require a specific version
of firmware to be installed in your system.
On each menu screen, you are given the option of choosing a menu item and pressing Enter
(if applicable), or selecting a navigation key. You can use the different options to review or set
the boot list information, or to set up the network environment parameters if you want the
system to boot from a NIM server.

2.12.8 Boot options

The p5-550 handles the boot process in a way that is similar to other pSeries servers.
The initial stage of the boot process is to establish that the machine has powered up correctly
and the memory and CPUs are functioning correctly. After the machine or the logical partition
reaches the SMS menus, all of the necessary tests have been performed and the machine is
scanning the bus for a boot source.
Most system backplanes are designed such that the drive in the first slot spins up
immediately after power-on, and other drives will wait for the operating system to send a
command before spinning up. Disk drive bays 4 and 8 are hardwired to spin-up immediately.
The left-most and accordingly bottom-most slot of the 4-pack disk backplanes (SCSI ID 8,
boot, autostart) is set to spin up immediately after power-on. The power-on delay sequence is
performed to prevent power supply overloading. This behavior makes the disk in the first slot
of the first 4-pack DASD backplane the preferred boot device. See Figure 2-15 to locate all of
the disk bays.
Figure 2-15 Disk bays and SCSI addresses within a p5-550
When SMS menus are available, the Select Boot Options menu can be used to view and set
various options regarding the installation devices and boot devices:
1. Select Install or Boot a Device
Enables you to select a device to boot from or install the operating system from. This
selection is for the current boot only.
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p5-550 Technical Overview and Introduction