Disk Mirroring

[GregMuir]

I have just installed Windows2000 on a new pc with 2 20GB hard drives. I created a 4GB fat32 partition on drive 0 for the operating system. I can create a second partition on drive0 and format it, but I want to Mirror both partitions to the second drive. When I go to create a volume on drive1 the mirrored volume radio button is dimmed grey.

I am new to windows 2000, and can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong?

 

[peterve]

If you don't have a good reason to run on FAT32, try to convert to NTFS
(I think that this is the reason why you can't set up a mirror set) Peter Van Eeckhoutte
peter.ve@pandora.be

 

[Zelandakh]

Click the big partition on disk 0 and hold down shift and click the free space on the other disk. Right click and choose mirror.

 

[DeanSpencer]

I just did this today. First, I believe they both need to be NTFS. I had to make both drives a dynamic disk instead of basic. Then it would let me mirror them.

 

[chrisi]

Take SP1, it changes behavior of HD-Handling

 

[Guest_imported]

Hi everybody, this is Frank. I need to mirror data of a local hard disk to another hard disk from another server. Is that possible? If yes, how do I synchronise them? Thank you for reading this message.

Best regards,
Frank.

 

[Zelandakh]

Frank - this is not the same question so it should be a new thread. But anyway.

Get a blank disk bigger than the existing one. Put it into the server. Boot up the server and follow the above to produce a mirror set. Down the server, remove the new disk, boot the server and break the mirror.

Take this disk and put it in the new server. Boot it.

Downsides: need to have the same hardware. Boot.ini problems. You will have the same SIDs which can cause problems on the same network.

 

[Guest_imported]

I tried mirroring my c: drive to my slave d: in Win2k Server, but found out they must both be dynamic disks. The process of making them dynamic will erase them, and I just spent five hours rebuilding c: after a recent hacker attack and I would like to mirror it so if an attack happens again I can just swap c: with the mirror and be back online. Is there a way I can mirror c: without erasing it? Is there other software available to do this?

Why doesn't the Windows backup/restore utility make a REAL backup of the system? I thought I was in good shape after the attack because I had a two day old backup, only to find out the backup only contained the data files, not the whole syatem. I was grateful to have the data files, but I still had to rebuild the system, configure DNS, IIS, and everything else. Why do they make creating a mirror so hard? Any tips would be much appreciated!

 

[DeanSpencer]

Updating your hard drives to dymanic does not format them. It changes them on the spot. Then you can setup mirroring. I belive what I read, was that after upgrading to dymanic disks, then you could not go back to basic. I think I did, it was the only time I have done it on 2000 Server. I can't remember if I was able to "downgrade" back to Basic disk without losing the partition information. I found an article on MS Technet site that talked all about 2000 and all the different ways you can use the DiskManagement in 2000. Hope this helps in some way..

 

[DeanSpencer]

I knew as soon as I hit "Submit Post", I would find the link on Technet.. Here it is...

http://www.microsoft.com/TechNet/win2000/win2ksrv/reskit/sopch01.asp

 

[SirLee]

NickRock

You should look into something like norton ghost or imagecast. This will do an image of your whole hardisk. With this you can have a 1 Gig harddrive installation up and running in about 5 to 10 minutes again. Disadvantage is that you have to boot with a special boot disk create the image, so if you want to do this on a regular basis you will have to shutdown your server quite often.

Mirroring your disk will not save you from hacker attacks as the attack would automatically be mirrored on your second drive. (Mirroring means to always write on both disks at the same time!) It only saves from physical harddrive errors, i.e bad blocks or head crashes on one of your disks.