Recovering Primary Boot Devices

All Services Routers use a compact flash to store JUNOS Software, router configuration files, and log files. The internal compact flash is not hot-swappable and is accessible only after you remove the cover on the back panel of the router chassis. In addition to the internal compact flash, J2320 and J2350 Services Routers have a slot in the front of the chassis for external flash media. All Services Routers also support externally pluggable USB storage devices. If the primary storage medium becomes corrupted and no secondary medium is in place, you can reload the JUNOS recovery software package onto the corrupted compact flash card with a desktop or laptop computer running either a UNIX, Microsoft Windows 2000, or Windows XP operating system.

This section contains the following topics:

• Why Compact Flash Recovery Might Be Necessary
• Recommended Recovery Hardware and Software
• Configuring Internal Compact Flash Recovery

Why Compact Flash Recovery Might Be Necessary

For media redundancy, we recommend that you keep a secondary storage medium attached and updated at all times. Use the request system snapshot command to perform the update. (For instructions, see the JUNOS Software Administration Guide.)

If the internal compact flash fails at startup, the Services Router automatically boots itself from the external compact flash or USB storage device. When a redundant storage medium is not available, the router is unable to boot and does not come back online. This situation can occur if the power fails during a JUNOS Software upgrade and the physical or logical storage media on the router are corrupted.

If the primary storage medium becomes corrupted and no secondary medium is in place, you can reload the JUNOS Software image onto the corrupted compact flash with a desktop or laptop computer running either a UNIX, Microsoft Windows 2000, or Windows XP operating system.

Caution: This procedure does not recover any router configuration files. After you reinstall JUNOS Software, all the information on the original internal compact flash is lost.

Recommended Recovery Hardware and Software

Before configuring compact flash recovery, assemble the equipment and software listed in Table 46.

Table 46: Recommended Recovery Hardware and Software

Configuring Internal Compact Flash Recovery

To recover an internal compact flash with a corrupt or missing operating system, you must remove the corrupt internal compact from the J Series Services Router, plug it into a PC with a PCMIA adapter or USB card reader, copy the JUNOS recovery software package onto it, and reinstall on the router.

Recovery software packages are available from the same location as J Series upgrade software packages. (See the JUNOS Software Administration Guide.)

To recover an internal compact flash:

1. Plug the compact flash into a PCMCIA adapter or USB card reader.
2. Plug the PCMCIA adapter or USB card reader into the host PC and verify that the compact flash is recognized by the operating system.
3. Select the appropriate recovery software package according to the size of your compact flash. The uncompressed package must have the same size as the target compact flash capacity: 128 MB, 256 MB, 512 MB or 1024 MB. The recovery software package name indicates the size of the package. For information about recovery software package names, see the JUNOS Software Administration Guide.
4. Copy the software package to a temporary directory on the host PC and uncompress it with a compression utility, such as WinZip.
5. Copy the uncompressed software package from the temporary directory to the compact flash with one of the following commands:

   Caution: You must use the correct target device name. Failure to do so might damage other storage devices connected to the host PC.

   • On a UNIX PC, use the command dd if=filename of=/dev/device_name. Replace filename with the name of the uncompressed image, and device_name with the name of the unformatted PCMCIA card device. For example:
     
     

     root# dd if=junos-jseries-7.0–20041028.0–export-cf128 of=/dev/hde

     250368+0 records in250368+0 records out

   • On a Windows 2000 or Windows XP PC, use the Norton Ghost, dd, or physdiskwrite utility. The following example shows the use of physdiskwrite:
     
     

     C:\> physdiskwrite —u junos-jseries-7.0–20041028.0–export-cf512

     physdiskwrite v0.5 by Manuel Kasper 
           Searching for physical drives...
           Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive0:
           Windows: cyl: 2432
           tpc: 255
           spt: 63
           C/H/S: 16383/16/63
           Model: HITACHI_DK23DA-20
           Serial number: 123ABC
           Firmware rev.: 00J2A0G0
           Information for \\.\PhysicalDrive1:
           Windows: cyl: 125
           tpc: 255
           spt: 63
           Which disk do you want to write? (0..1) 1
           WARNING: that disk is larger than 800 MB! Make sure you're 
           not accidentally overwriting your primary hard disk!  
           Proceeding on your own risk...
           About to overwrite the contents of disk 1 with new data. 
           Proceed? (y/n) y
           511451136/511451136 bytes written in total

Note: The copy process can take several minutes.

After copying the software package to the compact flash, you can use it as the internal compact flash in any J Series Services Router.