booting 6509 from compact PC card

[solomonthuo]

i was tryin to upgrade a client's 6509-e switch from the 12.2 (17)SXD IOS to 12.2 (18) SXD IOS so that it can see the WLSM (as the WLSM required 12.2 (18) SXD or higher). however i kept on getting a "software forced crash..." error after which the switch booted the sup-flash 12.2 17 IOS which was the old one. The switch has 64 MB internal flash and 512 MB PC card flash. I checked the requirements for 12.2 18 and it requires at least 128MB flash. Does this required mean having the 128 MB internal flash or does it apply to total flash memory? ofcourse i issued the boot system flash disk0:IOS command for the new IOS that i copied to flash, does this make the switch to run the IOS from disk0 (512MB flash) or is there a way of telling the switch to extract the IOS in that external IOS? kindly assist in this.

[gwhuang5398]

It means to have 128MB flash on the sup, which is normally only 64MB, or on a media like a compact flash. The image of 12.2(18) IOS is usually 40 some MB. So you can delete the existing one, copy the new one over, and boot from the bootflash, or simply boot it from the compact flash. If you alway want to boot from the compact flash, just set the boot statement to "boot system flash disk0:......"

Hope this helps.

Gary

[ankurbhasin]

Hi Friend,

As per your questions

"I checked the requirements for 12.2rd 18 and it requires at least 128MB flash"

Now 128 MB flash not necessarily means internal flash on sup it can be any flash device. Flash is just a memory space which is further categorized into bootflash and external card which you will insert in disk0 and when any IOS requirement says x amount of flash you need to have minimum of that capacity flash which can be either bootflash or disk0 card.

Your another question is

"does this make the switch to run the IOS from disk0 (512MB flash) or is there a way of telling the switch to extract the IOS in that external IOS"

When you boot your switch directly from disk0 it will not load the IOS back to the bootflash but it will directly boot from disk0 copying the IOS image to DRAM directly.

HTH, if yes please rate the post.

Ankur

[solomonthuo]

thanks very much for your assistance.

then it seems i have the right requirements to load the v18. Now tell me what causes the "software forced crash.....booting rmon" then the system boots default software in sup-bootflash.

when i do a "dir disk0:" i get the correct output for the new flash disk i.e 512MB

i removed all lines for the old IOS and put "boot system flash disk0:filename" but the switch went to rmon. In this mode when i issue a boot system flash disk0: i get some :invalid device magic number.

i don't think it's the software that is corrupt since i tested using different IOS; IP base and advanced Ip services and got the same errors. the copying from ftp is succesful and the verification works ok.

how can i know if the compact flash has errors?

what can be the problem?

[ankurbhasin]

Hi Friend,

Boot the cat6k box with old image and then try dir disk0: and see if the cat6k can read the disok0: or not.

If you get same error then try formatting the disk0: and copy the image again on to it via tftp and then try reading the disk0: again via dir command and if you get positive response boot with disk0:

HTH

Ankur

[gwhuang5398]

A few things you can check to correct the "forced crash":

- make sure the config register is 0x2102;

- the right image file is on the device you want to boot and matches the boot statement;

As Ankur suggested, if you reformat disk0, make sure you have the compact flash card you want to use in the slot when you reformat. You need to copy the image again to the flash card after the formating. Then you can boot from the CF card either in EXEC mode or rmon mode.

Hope this helps

Gary

[solomonthuo]

i ran into more problems as attached. kindly assist