Re: Installing Adaptec 1420SA SATA RAID controller

Hi Aart,

I seem to recall looking into dynamic disks before and we decided that there
were way too many drawbacks and too much risk to use them on a production
server. Also I am very reluctant to install Acronis on this; it is a live
Production server, again way too many people have reported serious problems
after installing Acronis. I don't mind booting from an Acronis CD and
mirroring using that but I don't think that would be likely to see the
Adaptec array correctly would it?

I find it quite amazing that the Adaptec controller has no facility for
creating an array from an existing disk. Both VIA and Promise RAID
controllers that I have used previously have been able to do this so why can
Adaptec not do it!

Any suggestions for a clean/simple/safe disk cloning/imaging utility?

Cheers,
Nick

"Aart Jansen" <aart@*remove*hayes.co.nz> wrote in message
news:uZAU$M2DIHA.1208@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Presuming you can boot with both raid controllers active, you could create
a mirror between the 2 volumes, then once it's synced, shutdown & remove
the original disks, reboot and remove the mirror. The downside being
you'll have to convert the volumes to dynamic disks. Otherwise you'll
probably have to use a 3rd party disk cloning/imaging utility.
"Nick" <NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23QIgp81DIHA.5228@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
So having recreated RAID on a pair of fresh disks how do I copy the
existing SBS and other partitions onto the RAID array.

"SBS Rocker" <noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uWwTVa1DIHA.4836@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
you just can't move two drives from a RAID controller to another, plug
it in and expect it to work. The new RAID controller knows nothing about
the array. Sounds like you need to recreate the RAID container on the
new controller.


"Nick" <NoSpam@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23oOanP0DIHA.1204@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Further to earlier advise here and elsewhere we decided to install an
Adaptec 1420SA SATA RAID controller card on our Server as an
alternative to the onboard VIA RAID controller we have been using.

Problem is I do not seem to be able to create the Mirror Array using an
existing disk! I did think about doing this and then using Acronis
(boot from CD) to mirror the existing drive onto the new array but I
don't know if Acronis would see the new mirrored array correctly? Also
would that not overwrite the boot sector preventing the Adaptec
controller from detecting that the new drive is part of a disk array?

Anyone suggest how to do this?

Nick









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  • Re: Installing Adaptec 1420SA SATA RAID controller
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    (microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs)