A method, system, and computer product for aiding in the debugging of an I/O failure. When an I/O failure is detected on a RIO drawer, a data processing system uses the bulk power controller to provide an alternate path, rather than using the existing RIO links, to access registers on the I/O drawers. The system logs onto the bulk power controller, which provides a communications path between the data processing system and the RIO drawer. The communications path allows the data processing system to read the chip registers on the I/O drawer. The data processing system captures I/O failure information in the I/O drawer using the communications path, wherein the I/O failure information is used to debug the I/O failure.