Hi,
is it possible to import a disk into a system, and to mount it without overwriting all data on this disk?
thanks

It depends on how the disk was written. If it's a LVM disk created on another HP-UX system, yes, you can use vgimport to do this.

Thank you for the reply,
In fact, the disk I want to import has an inittab probleme. Then, I can't boot on it. I would like to mount this disk in another server (HP-UX 1020) to repair it.
I think I can only use vgimport if I made a map file in the disk to import.

That's not true. If you gave the volume group screwy names like /dev/vg00/lvol_this and /dev/vg00/lvol_that then you will need that map file to preserve the names. Without a map file, LVM will just use /dev/vg00/lvol0 and /dev/vg00/lvol1. Even if you used the default names, without a map file, LVM may get them mixed up and, for example, switch lvol0 and lvol1. But the mixup in logical volume names is the only problem with importing without the map file.

But anyway, I think that you should be able to boot straight into single user mode even with a screwed up inittab. Interrupt the boot process, boot from the primary path, choose to interact with ISL, and then type "hpux -is".

Thanks,

I've only tried hpux -is but at the boot I have the message :
"It was impossible for the kernel to find a process".
I have it since I've changed the inittab.

Ok, I'll try the vgimport.

Ok,
My server has 2 vg : vg00 and vg02.

I think I have to strike:
# for create dir:
mkdir /dev/vgdata

# I found this command but I don't know what that mean and #what it is use for:
mknod /dev/vgdata/group c 64 Ox02000

# the import command:
vgimport -v /dev/vgdata /dev/dsk/c0t10d0

# activate the volume group
vgchange -a y /dev/vgdata

Can you tell me if there is a mistake?

Every volume group must have a unique group file. You need to look at all (well, both) of your pre-existing group files and make sure that the minor number is different. I would expect that vg02 may already have a group with 0x020000, if so, you must pick 0x030000 or 0x010000 or whatever. And notce that the minor number has zeros, you show a leading capital O. And there are 4 trailing zeroes, not three as you show.

Do a "ls -l /dev/vg*/group" after your mknod to be sure that you have it right.

I would then use the preview option first:
vgimport -p -v ...
This won't change anything but will detect almost any errors. If that looks good, then do the real vgimport.

Then vgchange looks good.