The IBM Standalone Diagnostics CD-ROM provides hardware diagnostics and service-related utilities for POWER, PowerPC, eServer i5 system with common pSeries I/O, and RS/6000-based systems. The preferred method for diagnosing and servicing these systems is to use the concurrent diagnostics and service-related utilities that are installed with the operating system on the system or partition. However, the standalone diagnostics CD-ROM would be used in the following situations when it makes sense to test the hardware independent of the operating system:
- When there is no operating system installed on a system or partition
- When the operating system does not have support for the service related function you wish to perform
- When there may be a problem with the boot device
- When the service documentation specifically recommends running standalone diagnostics
Updates are released periodically to support new systems and devices.