Patent ID: 7979749

Claim:
A diagnosis mechanism for a computer system, comprising: an auxiliary service system capable of gaining access to resources of a failed or failing operating system running on a computer system capable of supporting a plurality of concurrently-running operating system instances, each said operating system instance owning or sharing one or more processing elements, a certain amount of memory, and one or more input/output (I/O) devices, and automatically diagnosing the failed or failing operating without affecting a functioning of other instances of operating system concurrently operating on said computer system, wherein said computer system comprises a Symmetric Multi-Processor (SMP), wherein said concurrently-running operating system instances and said auxiliary service system each occupies a respective Logical PARtition (LPAR), said auxiliary service system comprises an ambulance service LPAR, and said LPARs are controlled by a hypervisor, wherein each said operating system instance, during an initial booting procedure, prepares a memory region for storing metadata of its kernel and non-kernel data structures and other information that can potentially assist said auxiliary service system during a failure of said operating system instance, said operating system instance providing a location of said memory region to said hypervisor before beginning a normal course of operation after said initial booting procedure, machine-readable instructions permitting said auxiliary service system to identify locations of at least one of kernel structures and other data structures in a distressed operating system, wherein said auxiliary system further comprises at least one data structure validator that validates values of said at least one of kernel structures and data structures.