Boot.ini changes when adding IDE controllers

[seadrake]

The server is a Compaq Proliant 5500R with 2 onboard SCSI ports and add on Smart array 3200 RAID controller. This configuration boots from the RAID controller into W2K professional server using boot.ini :
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Server" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Server" /fastdetect

The exisiting raid array is only a paltry mirrored 27GB. The cost to add in an additional 300GB of SCSI RAID is about 10K.
I'd like to use 2 Maxtor 160GB drives with the supplied ATA133 (non-RAID)controller. Alas, Compaq servers will attempt to boot from the IDE device. Compaq T/S verifies this.

There is rumored to be a way around this by creating a boot disk with appropriate changes to the boot.ini and including the appropriate file as ntbootdd.sys
I have tried using cpqarray.sys as ntbootdd.sys and quite a few ARC paths such as scsi(0)disk(2)rdisk(0)partition(2) to no avail. I seeing the the message:

Windows 2000 could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk.

Booting from a boot disk doesn't bother me at all, I just need some help from someone who's experienced in this. It must be in the ARC path. Please don't refer me to a Microsoft ARC path knowledge base. Been there. What I need is suggested ARC paths, some other method, or the ever present, no way, no how (can't be done.)

 

[patw]

I'm a Unix guy, but I do know that booting from IDE disks IF PRESENT is hard wired into the PC architecture.

You would have to reconfigure the machine so Win 2k is resident and boots from the 1st IDE disk.

But, unless this machine is really only a workstation and NOT a server you don't want to do this, as IDE type disks will cause major slowdowns (in comparison to SCSI) on a busy server since IDE is NOT multi-threaded.

Translation: only one request for disk I/O can be handled at a time under IDE, while the design of SCSI is multi-threaded and can service multiple requests at a time - able to optimize physical head movements for maximum throughput in a multi-user environment.

Another option for you, IF the extra space is mostly needed for archiving seldom used files, is network attached storage.

I say seldom used files because your network bandwidth could become seriously degraded if you put heavily used files on NAS.

-Pat Welch, patubb@inreach,com