Re: Boot problems with RAID
- From: sh2811 <sh2811@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 11 Apr 2008 04:22:02 -0700
Hi Andy. When I boot to the old installation the 2 RAID drives show up as 2
physical drives in windows explorer. This did surprise me at first as the
raid controller's BIOS recognises the drives as one drive when the pc boots
up so why doesn't the old xp installation see them as just one drive? I
guessed that must be because I haven't installed the Intel RAID software on
the old installation BUT.... maybe what you have said about the registry
might be right?
However.... what would have caused the registry of the old install to have
that problem when this was the first time I booted it with the 2 RAIDed
drives connected? Something must have written to the disks when I booted to
the old install but it wasn't me! I can see what you say about the signatures
being changed if the old install saw them as having the same signatures
(though I have no idea if you are right).
Thing is... how do I get the system to boot back to the new setup? When I
tried booting with the XP setup CD and running the recovery console to repair
the install I ran the FIXMBR command but am now wondering if I did it
correctly. I simply typed FIXMBR and nothing else and was greeted with just
an empty command line on pressing enter, i.e. no diagnostic info. Should I
have used any extensions to the FIXMBR, i.e. "FIXMBR c:\" or some such
command?
I'm still confused as to why this has actually happened!
Thanks again.
"Andy" wrote:
On Thu, 10 Apr 2008 19:36:00 -0700, sh2811.
<sh2811@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi.
I have 2 drives in mirror configuration, RAID 1, that I have just installed
XP Pro SP2 on. All was running OK. I don't think it is relevant but they are
SATA (1s), connected to the Master 1 and Master 2 SATA connectors. I have
just upgraded from a single 320GB SATA to these 750GB drives and did a
reinstall rather than a clone as my system was overdue a clean install.
As I said, the system was booting fine to the 750s and I had the old 320GB
connected to the Slave 1 port. The original XP installation is left on the
320 as I am in the process of copying across what I need to the 750s (and
also so I could reboot to the old setup if I ran into problems... which I now
have). The 'new' XP system boots with the 750s as drive C, DVD drives in D &
E, the old 320GB as F and then 4 card reader drives after that.
So.... and here's where I went wrong I think. I rebooted and changed the
BIOS to boot from the old 320 first as I wanted to export my old Outlook
Express settings etc, and left the 2 750s cnonected. The system booted to the
old drive OK and now the RAID 'drive' is shown as 2 separate drives (F & G),
i.e. not the single mirror drive as the old XP system has no RAID software
installed on it. I had no intention of copying any files directly to either
of the 2 RAIDs as I didn't want to make any changes to them whilst running
the old install. I was being lazy and maybe should have physically
disconnected them to avoid any possibility of corrupting the new install.
I exported the O.E. data to a folder on the old drive so that I would then
be able to copy it after I had rebooted back to the new install.
When I went to boot back to the new system I altered the BIOS boot order
back to the RAID 750s but now the system just reboots in a continuous loop.
It gets past the BIOS boot to where it should start the windows load and
flashes a VERY quick message that I can't pause in time to read properly. I
think it is mentioning the BOOT.INI but in what context I am not sure.
I have booted to the XP setup disc and into the recovery console to try a
FIXMBR, that did nothing (bad idea anyway?). I also tried the BOOTCFG command
but it tells me it can't find any boot files.
The Intel RAID BIOS boot page (after the main BIOS boot page) shows both 750
drives and indicates all is well. Booting to the old 320GB install allows me
to browse the 750s and again all looks OK. The boot.ini files on the 750s are
the same as on the old 320.
Are you browsing the drives as a single raid drive, or as two
individual drives?
I have no idea whether the disk signatures of the two drives are
identical in a raid 1 setup, but I do know that when Windows sees them
individually, the disk signatures will be made different if they are
identical.
I'm just speculating, but a mismatch of the disk signature in the MBR
and the registry can cause problems.
Sorry if this is rambly, it's the early hours of the morning! I expect this
is an easy one but need someone to point out the obvious to me please!
Was I wrong to think I could reboot with all drives connected BUT back to
the old 320 system and not affect the new setup? Schoolboy error?
Thanks for any pointers.
- References:
- Boot problems with RAID
- From: sh2811
- Boot problems with RAID
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