diff --git a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/sparsemem.h b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/sparsemem.h
index 54a47ea2c3aa23385dcd5855614f962529bdda5f..0c5fa3145615c28074208ca64e79fdac12b06170 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/include/asm/sparsemem.h
+++ b/arch/powerpc/include/asm/sparsemem.h
@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@
 #endif /* CONFIG_SPARSEMEM */
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_MEMORY_HOTPLUG
-extern void create_section_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end);
+extern int create_section_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end);
 extern int remove_section_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end);
 #ifdef CONFIG_NUMA
 extern int hot_add_scn_to_nid(unsigned long scn_addr);
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/mm/hash_utils_64.c b/arch/powerpc/mm/hash_utils_64.c
index 1f8b2a05e3d0d6ad14797452c1e6a3a896660d3b..1628201c8ceaf16e60d7bea03d14e1813f2cbc2b 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/mm/hash_utils_64.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/mm/hash_utils_64.c
@@ -531,11 +531,11 @@ static unsigned long __init htab_get_table_size(void)
 }
 
 #ifdef CONFIG_MEMORY_HOTPLUG
-void create_section_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
+int create_section_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
 {
-	BUG_ON(htab_bolt_mapping(start, end, __pa(start),
+	return htab_bolt_mapping(start, end, __pa(start),
 				 pgprot_val(PAGE_KERNEL), mmu_linear_psize,
-				 mmu_kernel_ssize));
+				 mmu_kernel_ssize);
 }
 
 int remove_section_mapping(unsigned long start, unsigned long end)
diff --git a/arch/powerpc/mm/mem.c b/arch/powerpc/mm/mem.c
index ad9cf49dfb89a989c2108b5905f149522c7583ba..5db316cad47ba1518cc63095635b232446471f5f 100644
--- a/arch/powerpc/mm/mem.c
+++ b/arch/powerpc/mm/mem.c
@@ -123,7 +123,8 @@ int arch_add_memory(int nid, u64 start, u64 size)
 	pgdata = NODE_DATA(nid);
 
 	start = (unsigned long)__va(start);
-	create_section_mapping(start, start + size);
+	if (create_section_mapping(start, start + size))
+		return -EINVAL;
 
 	/* this should work for most non-highmem platforms */
 	zone = pgdata->node_zones;