ML530 Ghost Procedure

[benace]

Hey All-
I have a number of Compaq ML530s, and one Compaq 1600. Right now I'm more worried about the ML530s. I need to be able to boot up these machines with a network boot disk, be able to access my network, and have full access to all the drives. There are 5 18.2gb drives lumped into one large disk, then divided logically into 2 disks (one is 24gb, one uses the remaining).
I tried using both the Norton Ghost Boot Disk Creator and the Microsoft Network Boot Disk Creator, but whenever I boot up with the floppy, the net.exe command (whether executed from the command line or within the autoexec) returns something to the effect of:

Path specified not found
Cannot locate securities file

And then it dies. Anyone out there have a good image of a boot disk I can use to boot up my ML530 and access the network and my RAID drives? Any help MUCH appreciated, thanks!!

-ben

Ben McMahon
IT Administrator

 

[TheLad]

What OS are you running on the servers? Also, what network cards have you got in the servers? -----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
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[benace]

Update:
Sorry for the lack of info, had to toss it together real quick. The servers are ML530s, 18.2gb drives RAIDed into one physical drive, partitioned into 2 logical drives.
We have Windows 2000 Server installed on the primary partition, running Terminal Services and Citrix MetaFrame XPa. We have a second clean Windows 2000 Server installation on the second partition, soely for backup purposes. Each ML530 has (2) Compaq NC3123 NICs, which are virtually teamed together (not that the teaming is relevant for ghosting).
My immediate aim is to be able to boot into DOS mode with network and RAID access, and be able to upload and download images to the hard disk. I'm doing usability and QA testing on software, most of which can only be installed (cannot be uninstalled without adverse affects on functionality). So... rather than having to go through the whole setup procedure, I would like to be able to just ghost the machine, install the software, and if something fails, dies... what have you... i can just drop the image down and try again.
An idea I had in passing.... can I boot into the backup windows install and run ghost from there? Will it allow me to make and force images to and from the primary partition? Thanks for the help, MUCH appreciated! If you need any more info on our setup, feel free to ask

-ben

Ben McMahon

 

[benace]

Ok-
Sorry for the multiple posts, but I just had a brainstorm (sorry, it's late and between exams and working late nights my brain hasn't been working quite right lately). But... since I have a completely independent Win2k server install on a different logical drive, wouldn't it be possible to just boot into the backup install, and file-copy the entire c:\ drive to a folder on the d:\ (backup) drive? The Win2k install with the software i'm testing is only a max of 2gb, and i've got well over 20gb on my backup partition. Not at the server presently, so I can't test just yet, but let me know if i'm way off. Thanks!

-ben

 

[gholkr]

I am having trouble ghosting my compaq ml530 server. I cannot get it to recognize and add the drive letters for my smart array controller and the logical drives on it. Has anyone had this trouble before? When i tried to run ghost it tells me there is an inconsistency error and there's some invalid fat type errors in the dos prompt. It is norton ghost 2003 and I downloaded the smrtscsi.sys driver from compaq's website and loaded it in config.sys. Any ideas? has anyone gotten ghost to work properly and want to help me out with a boot disk? Also, anyone tried that other software made by the partition magic people (drive image)? Hope to hear back from someone.

thanks

 

[TheLad]

What version of Ghost are you using? Usually, if you using an older version of Ghost you get funny errors because the older versions of Ghost cannot read NTFS properly.

-----------------------------------------------------
"It's true, its damn true!"
-----------------------------------------------------

 

[gholkr]

Ghost 2003 that's the newest isn't it?

 

[9261970]

i try to install win2000 server on my compaq ML530 server
after it install some files and make the first reboot
it just give me a blank screen and it dos'nt follow the installation

thankyou
moe
mohamm235@yahoo.com

 

[kenyhp]

newer version of ghost is ver 9. The good thing is that you can make incremental backups. it runs on .net. So you need to install the .net 1.1 framework also.

 

[sandav92]

Two things about Ghosting RAID drives. It is not supported by Compaq/HP and never has. Ghost and several others like programs were tested when I worked at Compaq. None of them worked with out problems. It is something that no body has worked all the bugs out with Compaq RAIDED drives.