Get a partial stand-alone dump

While it is always best to get a complete stand-along dump, sometimes time constraints will not allow this. There is no guarantee that it will be possible to diagnose a failure from a partial stand-alone dump; however, if the choice is between no dump at all or a partial dump, then the partial dump is the best choice.

When taking a partial stand-alone dump:

Let the stand-alone dump run for as long as you can. If you run out of time, you can stop the dump cleanly.
Stand-alone dump tries to write out the most important information first.
- Status information (PSW, registers, and so forth) for all CPUs
- Critical real storage, including common storage and trace information
- Real storage for address spaces executing at the time of the dump
- Any remaining real storage
- Paged out storage for swapped in address spaces
- Paged out storage for swapped out address spaces
Use the EXTERNAL INTERRUPT key to terminate the dumping process. This causes a clean stop, closing the output dataset properly.

In Figure 1, the dump was ended early using the EXTERNAL INTERRUPT key.

Figure 1. Example: Terminating a stand-alone dump

AMD083I   AMDSADMP:  STAND-ALONE DUMP RESTARTED
AMD094I   0330 SADMP1 SYS.SADMP
          IS VALID, HOWEVER, IT MAY ALREADY CONTAIN DATA FROM A PREVIOUS DUMP.
          THE INSTALLATION CHOSE TO ALWAYS REUSE THE DUMP DATA SET.
AMD101I   OUTPUT DEVICE: 0330 SADMP1 SYS1.SADMP
          SENSE ID DATA: FF 3990 E9 3390 0A  BLOCKSIZE: 24,960
AMD005I   DUMPING OF REAL STORAGE NOW IN PROGRESS.
AMD005I   DUMPING OF PAGE FRAME TABLE COMPLETED.
AMD005I   DUMPING OF REAL STORAGE FOR MINIMAL ASIDS COMPLETED.
AMD005I   DUMPING OF REAL STORAGE FOR SUMMARY ASIDS COMPLETED.
AMD089I   DUMP TERMINATED DUE TO EXTERNAL KEY
AMD066I   AMDSADMP ERROR, CODE=0012, PSW=040810008101235E, COMPDATA9AMDSA002)