the diagnostics consist of online diagnostics and standalone diagnostics.

    the aix operating system must be installed in a partition in order to run online diagnostics on that partition. if the aix operating system is not installed, use the standalone diagnostic procedures.

    online diagnostics, when they are installed, reside with aix in the file system. they can be booted:

    1 in single user mode (referred to as service mode)

    2 to run in maintenance mode (referred to as maintenance mode)

    3 to run concurrently with other applications (referred to as concurrent mode)

    standalone diagnostics must be booted before they can be run. if booted, the diagnostics have no access to the aix error log or the aix configuration data.