Windows 2000 server, booting from mirror, boot.ini

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phil_Certain
  • Start date Start date
P

Phil_Certain

Hi,

Can anyone help is advising how I can boot from a mirrored drive?

I have Windows 2000 server installed on a single disk. I have recently
added an identical disk in order to set up a RAID 1 mirror.

Disk 0 is connected to IDE channel 1 as Master
Disk 1 is connected to IDE channel 2 as master (CDROM is slave on IDE
channel 2)

I followed the process of converting disk 0 to a dynamic disk and then
connecting the second disk, disk 1. I then mirrored the volumes to the
new drive. All went well and a small (6MB) 'partion' of unallocated
space was created on the second disk during the mirroring process.


I created a boot floppy (as described in ms kb article 119467) that
contained the files:

boot.ini
ntldr
ntdetect.com


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect


Following the mirroring, I added a line to boot.ini so that it now
reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

(ref
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873/EN-US/#XSLTH3189121121120121120120)


With both disks connected, the system will boot from the floppy with
the boot.ini as shown imediately above, but guess what?...with disk0
disconnected, the system will not boot to Windows. During the boot
process, the system detects that disk0 is missing, requests f1 to
continue and then delivers the message:

Windows 2000 could not be started because of a hardware problem.
Could not read from selected boot disk.


I tried the following variations ot the 'mirro' entry in the boot.ini,
but it made no difference:

multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
and
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

Have also changes disk jumpers to set drives to 'cable selct', but this
alos makes no difference


So, I must be doing domething wrong somewhere. I've found conflicting
advice on this subject, can anybody help ?

Should both drives be connected to the same IDE channel?

Is there a trick related to creating a MBR on the mirror disk prior to
the mirroring process? If so, how is this done reliably?

Any help greatly appreciated.
 
(response at bottom)

Phil_Certain said:
...is there no one out there who holds the key to this?....

Phil_Certain said:
Hi,

Can anyone help is advising how I can boot from a mirrored drive?

I have Windows 2000 server installed on a single disk. I have recently
added an identical disk in order to set up a RAID 1 mirror.

Disk 0 is connected to IDE channel 1 as Master
Disk 1 is connected to IDE channel 2 as master (CDROM is slave on IDE
channel 2)

I followed the process of converting disk 0 to a dynamic disk and then
connecting the second disk, disk 1. I then mirrored the volumes to the
new drive. All went well and a small (6MB) 'partion' of unallocated
space was created on the second disk during the mirroring process.


I created a boot floppy (as described in ms kb article 119467) that
contained the files:

boot.ini
ntldr
ntdetect.com


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect


Following the mirroring, I added a line to boot.ini so that it now
reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

(ref
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873/EN-US/#XSLTH3189121121120121120120)


With both disks connected, the system will boot from the floppy with
the boot.ini as shown imediately above, but guess what?...with disk0
disconnected, the system will not boot to Windows. During the boot
process, the system detects that disk0 is missing, requests f1 to
continue and then delivers the message:

Windows 2000 could not be started because of a hardware problem.
Could not read from selected boot disk.


I tried the following variations ot the 'mirro' entry in the boot.ini,
but it made no difference:

multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
and
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

Have also changes disk jumpers to set drives to 'cable selct', but this
alos makes no difference


So, I must be doing domething wrong somewhere. I've found conflicting
advice on this subject, can anybody help ?

Should both drives be connected to the same IDE channel?

Is there a trick related to creating a MBR on the mirror disk prior to
the mirroring process? If so, how is this done reliably?

Any help greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

I recall from my days working on NT4 that there was a trick to this. I've
been trying to find my notes on this, but all I could find was the
following:

"To mirror the disks first create a partition on the second disk equal in
size to the system partition and format it. This creates a MBR for the
second disk that would not otherwise be created (otherwise the disk may not
be bootable should the primary disk fail.) "

So yes, the trick does seem to be related to MBR. I'm sure that there used
to be a tech-note on the Microsoft site about it, but I couldn't find it.
Sorry this is rather sketchy. I've not tried this with 2000 or 2003. I hope
this gives you something to go on. Please let me know.
 
The way I understood it,aslong as the boot ini was copied across you should
be able to uplug the master and it should boot of the mirror,I have also
setup the same raid on a lot of servers but have never tried it out,I think
if the master died you could remove the master and boot of the CD and run
the repair over the slave to make it boot if necessary.
Its a mirror you would think like ghost it should boot!!
Martin


Phil_Certain said:
...is there no one out there who holds the key to this?....

Phil_Certain said:
Hi,

Can anyone help is advising how I can boot from a mirrored drive?

I have Windows 2000 server installed on a single disk. I have recently
added an identical disk in order to set up a RAID 1 mirror.

Disk 0 is connected to IDE channel 1 as Master
Disk 1 is connected to IDE channel 2 as master (CDROM is slave on IDE
channel 2)

I followed the process of converting disk 0 to a dynamic disk and then
connecting the second disk, disk 1. I then mirrored the volumes to the
new drive. All went well and a small (6MB) 'partion' of unallocated
space was created on the second disk during the mirroring process.


I created a boot floppy (as described in ms kb article 119467) that
contained the files:

boot.ini
ntldr
ntdetect.com


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect


Following the mirroring, I added a line to boot.ini so that it now
reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

(ref
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873/EN-US/#XSLTH3189121121120121120120)


With both disks connected, the system will boot from the floppy with
the boot.ini as shown imediately above, but guess what?...with disk0
disconnected, the system will not boot to Windows. During the boot
process, the system detects that disk0 is missing, requests f1 to
continue and then delivers the message:

Windows 2000 could not be started because of a hardware problem.
Could not read from selected boot disk.


I tried the following variations ot the 'mirro' entry in the boot.ini,
but it made no difference:

multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
and
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

Have also changes disk jumpers to set drives to 'cable selct', but this
alos makes no difference


So, I must be doing domething wrong somewhere. I've found conflicting
advice on this subject, can anybody help ?

Should both drives be connected to the same IDE channel?

Is there a trick related to creating a MBR on the mirror disk prior to
the mirroring process? If so, how is this done reliably?

Any help greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Try setting your Disk 1 as a slave on channel 2, with your CD being the
master. Then unplug your drive 0 and reboot. The OS should load from the
mirrored image on Disk 1.
I've set up several RAID 1 configurations like this and have never had a
problem booting from the mirrored drive when it needed to.

hh said:
The way I understood it,aslong as the boot ini was copied across you should
be able to uplug the master and it should boot of the mirror,I have also
setup the same raid on a lot of servers but have never tried it out,I think
if the master died you could remove the master and boot of the CD and run
the repair over the slave to make it boot if necessary.
Its a mirror you would think like ghost it should boot!!
Martin


Phil_Certain said:
...is there no one out there who holds the key to this?....

Phil_Certain said:
Hi,

Can anyone help is advising how I can boot from a mirrored drive?

I have Windows 2000 server installed on a single disk. I have recently
added an identical disk in order to set up a RAID 1 mirror.

Disk 0 is connected to IDE channel 1 as Master
Disk 1 is connected to IDE channel 2 as master (CDROM is slave on IDE
channel 2)

I followed the process of converting disk 0 to a dynamic disk and then
connecting the second disk, disk 1. I then mirrored the volumes to the
new drive. All went well and a small (6MB) 'partion' of unallocated
space was created on the second disk during the mirroring process.


I created a boot floppy (as described in ms kb article 119467) that
contained the files:

boot.ini
ntldr
ntdetect.com


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect


Following the mirroring, I added a line to boot.ini so that it now
reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

(ref
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/102873/EN-US/#XSLTH3189121121120121120120)


With both disks connected, the system will boot from the floppy with
the boot.ini as shown imediately above, but guess what?...with disk0
disconnected, the system will not boot to Windows. During the boot
process, the system detects that disk0 is missing, requests f1 to
continue and then delivers the message:

Windows 2000 could not be started because of a hardware problem.
Could not read from selected boot disk.


I tried the following variations ot the 'mirro' entry in the boot.ini,
but it made no difference:

multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect
and
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Server" /fastdetect

Have also changes disk jumpers to set drives to 'cable selct', but this
alos makes no difference


So, I must be doing domething wrong somewhere. I've found conflicting
advice on this subject, can anybody help ?

Should both drives be connected to the same IDE channel?

Is there a trick related to creating a MBR on the mirror disk prior to
the mirroring process? If so, how is this done reliably?

Any help greatly appreciated.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
Thanks for the reply hhand vicexzilla - I'll try your sugesstions and
let you know. Phil
 
Back
Top