BiG IP F5 LTM - Diskinit + image2disk+iso's

[Xexpress]

Hi,

Can anyone offer any guidence in locating BiG IP F5 - Diskinit + image2disk files, it is required to re image a corrupt hard drive on a LTM I had running version 9.1.1.

Thanks

 

[thecoolnessrune]

You should not need any of that stuff. That version is super ancient, but you should be able to reinstall the unit using the correct version and burning the ISO a CD and using a USB CD Drive, or to a USB drive.

Reinstalling from out of band management and the USB CD: https://support.f5.com/csp/article/K9589
Reinstalling from a USB Drive: https://support.f5.com/content/kb/en-us/products/big-ip_ltm/releasenotes/umdinstall_9_4_3.html

 

[Xexpress]

Hi, thanks for your response, and I know the software we have been running is ancient, will explain a little more.

The existing drive in my f5 unit is damaged, was running version 9.3, so to recover my system i got the following:

I have got a replacement drive,
I have got a backup of the config.
I have ISO image version 9.1.1

Please note the f5 download site does not hold the files I require, so am trying alternate sources to locate the files

In order to prep the drive for the v9 iso, I need diskinit and image2disk utils.

If anyone has these files and vserion 9.x.x iso images I would be grateful.

Thanks in advance

 

[thecoolnessrune]

So a couple things about that.

1. Those utilities are used by F5 for F5 products. Providing links to such things here from alternate sources would not be legal, and unfortunately, would constitute piracy, which is explicitly not allowed on these forums.
2. As I mentioned previously, you don't need the image2disk utility. That utility explicitly does not work for installing 9.x code.
3. Why are you using 9.1.1? You should not be installing a back revision, especially if you're trying to install restore config. But you may need to open a ticket to F5 Support to get code revisions that old, as they usually take the out of support downloads off-site.

With either 9.x version, you should be using the ISO image you downloaded, going into it, and using the umdinstall.exe utility in the Windows Folder and creating a USB Drive specifying the BIG-IP system it's going to be installed onto. You then connect that USB Drive to your Big-IP unit, and connect via Serial so you can see the prompts. That's where you should be able to select Install, where it should format the drive and install the software just as if you were installing an old Linux distro on a generic computer.

Again, you shouldn't need image2disk. You cannot install 9.x code alone using image2disk (though you could install 9.x as a secondary image after using it to install 10.x or later.)

 

[Xexpress]

Hi,

thanks for the information, I shall try out what you suggested.

I tried F5 support who were not able to provide us with the legacy ISO images as they are so old.

Thanks once again.