So we all know how to write a boot image to a disk (bosboot -ad /dev/hdisk0) and how to set the bootlist (bootlist -m normal hdisk0 hdisk1).

You also want to check in the /dev directory to make sure you have your links set up correctly:

# ls -l | grep -i ipl
crw-rw—-   1 root     system       10,  0 Jul 14 2006  IPL_rootvg
crw-rw—-   2 root     system       10,  1 Jul 14 2006  ipl_blv  (should be same as rhd5)
crw——-   2 root     system       20,  0 Aug 13 11:10 ipldevice (should be same as rhdisk1, in this case)
# ls -l | grep hdisk1
brw——-   1 root     system       20,  0 Aug 13 11:20 hdisk1
crw——-   2 root     system       20,  0 Aug 13 11:10 rhdisk1
# ls -l | grep hd5
brw-rw—-   1 root     system       10,  1 Aug 13 11:37 hd5
crw-rw—-   2 root     system       10,  1 Jul 14 2006  rhd5

If you see something wrong, for example ipldevice points to the wrong disk, just rm the ipldevice pseudofile and relink it ( ln rhdisk1 ipldevice )

Also, support has me run this command that list out all bootable disks even if they are’t part of rootvg ( you get that with vio disks that are in rootvg for a client):

# ipl_varyon -i
PVNAME          BOOT DEVICE     PVID                    VOLUME GROUP ID
hdisk0          NO              00031691bced4a4e0000000000000000        00c1b3da00004c00
hdisk2          NO              00cdeaeadfcd0ebc0000000000000000        00c1b3da00004c00
hdisk1          YES             00031691bcd549a60000000000000000        00cdeaea00004c00