SBS 2K3: Raid disk read error

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From: Erik Rudbeck (key.dk_at_news)
Date: 05/10/04 

Date: Mon, 10 May 2004 20:49:27 +0200

Yesterday we were hit by a stroke of lightning nereby. My SBS box was
protected by UPS, but I lost the ADSL connection. During investigation the
server was rebooted twice with no problem. Finally I located the missing
internet connection to a faulty NIC (The external one in a dual NIC setup)

I shut down and replaced the NIC (D-Link DFE-530TX Rev-A1) with a new one,
Rev-C1 but otherwise identical.

I boot the server. But right after POST I was faced with the message: "A
disk read error occurred. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to restart". So I did, but
still the same. I then replaced the new NIC with the old one to bring the
hardware back to initial state. But I still get the error message.

The server is installed on a Raid(0) disk set of two S-ATA disks connected
to an Intel Raid controller integrated on the ASUS P4P800 motherboard.

I then did the following:
Booted on the SBS 2003 setup disk
Loaded the Raid driver using F6
Selected the 'R' option to enter the Recovery console
Was prompted for Admin password which I entered
Was left in the Recovery Console at the C:> prompt
I spend much time poking around here
Finally I dared to issue the FIXMBR command to no avail
I then tried the FixBoot command.
Now the server complains about missing file: Windows\System\VGAOEM.FON and
refuses to boot.
As far as I can see there is no Windows\System folder at all.

Now, to try to get into contact with the Raid disks I did the following:
Disconnected the S-ATA raid set
Put in a new ATA disk and installed Win XP Pro
Reconnected the S-ATA raid and disabled its boot-rom
When I boot on the WinXP disk, I am now able to browse alle drives and
folders on the Raid set. Which appears to be in fully working order:

My question is now:
Do you think there is any way to fix the boot problem on the Raid set, and
get everything back to normal?
If I need to completely reinstall SBS 2003 - I guess I can either install it
on the Raid set as originally or I could leave the ATA disk in, and install
SBS here.
In both these reinstall scenarios I expect that the drive structure on the
raid set will be kept intact - or what do you say?
If I need to reinstall SBS, is there an easy way to get the current Exchange
database back? - Its sitting there on the raid disks somewhere, and more
updated than my latest backup!

Its not my profession to deal with these things when they get ugly, so I
would be very happy if anybody has a little advice for me...

Kind regards,
Erik Rudbeck

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