Re: Simple RAID question

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"Joshua Bolton" <JoshuaBolton@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:05A465DB-798C-471E-908C-8C56E17B4917@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Herb is missing a step that will result in you NOT being able to boot the
shadow copy [though that is easily fixed after the fact]

No, this is not a missing step -- but we might argue there is a different
missing step for boot:

Creating a Boot Diskette -- since generally the "second Drive" cannot
be used by most hardware to boot, and even if it can that can screw up
other drives letters.

You only need to do the following IF you intend to re-plug the second
drive into (some machine) as the first drive. The boot diskette will
actually work more often.


You are correct that software mirroring does not mirror boot info. To
address this issue format as bootable [and boot as a test] the drive that
will be the shadow drive. Once that is done, you can wipe the drive via
Disk
Management [not a utility that zaps the drive or you are back at square
one].
Follow the instuctions Herb posted and you will have your mirrored drives.

If you ever encounter a issue with not being able to boot the shadow drive
a
running of the recovery utilities fixmbr and fixboot will sometimes fix
the
issue.
A repair reinstall always fixed the issue. I have aborted out after the
first phase [first reboot] of install and the disk was bootable. A repair
install does just that, a a repair. Leaves your data/apps intact though
you
do need to redo your service patches.

A trick not well covered by Microsoft documentation is if you find
yourself
having to boot the shadow drive, remove the failed drive. This way no
boot.ini setting has to be changed [boot.ini refers to first disk not the
second. if drive is seen at the bios level that makes the shadow {rdisk
(2)}.

In some cases this messes up other volumes and drive letter assignments.
Not always but sometimes.

Removing the bad drive means the shadow is then rdisk (1) and no change
required to boot.ini]


.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: NTLDR is missing
    ... Make sure that there are no disks in any removable drives when you boot. ... NTLDR is missing, why does it happen? ... Computer hard disk drive is not properly setup in BIOS. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Windows XP does not boot
    ... I managed to get the recovery console to boot ... own default letters for the drives. ... missing or courrpt doesn't always mean it is missing, ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: Changing Shadow Copy Volume
    ... VSS uses shadow copy for backup on in use files. ... extend the partition as well, but it's going to have to be done. ... drives where users store their files (which are on separate partitions ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: Changing Shadow Copy Volume
    ... VSS uses shadow copy for backup on in use files. ... extend the partition as well, but it's going to have to be done. ... drives where users store their files (which are on separate ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)
  • Re: physical drive replacement
    ... > My first problem is determining which of the 2 physical drives in stripeset ... and mount it into the shadow set, which should trigger a shadow copy ... to swap out the bad disk and rebuild the stripeset, ...
    (comp.os.vms)