Boot From Secondary BIOS

The blade server provides dual 32-Mbyte BIOS chips that support redundant BIOS images for increased reliability. The default chip (page 0) acts as the primary BIOS chip and is automatically selected for update during a firmware upgrade. The secondary BIOS chip (page 1) retains the original BIOS image, and can be used through manual configuration in the unlikely case where the primary BIOS becomes corrupt.

If the primary BIOS becomes unbootable, use the secondary BIOS to manually boot the blade server:

1. Log in to the Shelf Manager.

2. To select the secondary BIOS image, type:

   # clia sendcmd 2e 81 00 00 2a 01 board n

   Where board n is the physical slot number. For example:

   # clia sendcmd 96 2e 81 00 00 2a 01 <----- Setting the boot page to 1
    
   Pigeon Point Shelf Manager Command Line Interpreter
    
   Completion code: 0x0 (0)   <----- successful completion code
   Response data: 00 00 2A    <----- no data returned

3. To boot the blade server from the Shelf Manager, type:

   # clia activate board n

4. After the blade server is booted, reset the blade server to use the primary BIOS image (page 0) as in the following example.

   # clia sendcmd board n 2e 81 00 00 2a 00