Netfinity 5000 - Unable to boot from disk

[IBMKWUSer]

Ok. Might be a silly question for you experts. Our Netfinity 5000 (it has 4 drives) was working fine until one day. Apparently there was a power outage during the previous day.

When we try to boot it, it seems the drive that contains the operating system (WINT NT4 svr) has problems booting up. It eventually comes up with this message

"1962 - Drive does not contain a valid boot sector."

Does that mean the disk is totally dead? I've tried returning config to defaults, clearing logs, unplugging power etc. Any idea what caused it or if fixable? or do I need to replace the broken HDisk.

Thanks.

Kev.

 

[catorze]

Do you get any other errors before the 1962 error? How are the HDDs configured? Volume set? Are the HDDs attached to a RAID Controller? What kind? What Slot? Is anything attached to the onboard SCSI Controller? What config did you restore to defaults? CMOS? What do you mean broken disk? The answers to these questions may indicate how badly you're pooched.
If it's a Volume set attached to the onboard SCSI controller, it's a good possibility that you're pooched unless you have the ERD.
If the HDDs are attached to a RAID controller, AND the HDDs are configured in a RAID 1 or RAID 5 logical drive, AND you see some RAID error before the 1962 error, unless you committed the changes (from a RAID error) to the configuration, you may be able to recover. If you're running RAID 0, and only a single HDD failed, you're pooched. If all of the HDDs are marked DDD, you may be able to recover. The IBM HelpCenter is the best place to call before you change anything else.
If the RAID Controller is NOT in Slot 5, AND the SCSI BIOS is enabled, you may be running out of memory space to boot from the RAID Controller. The server hits Slot 5 before the onboard SCSI. If that's the case, and you do not boot to the onboard SCSI, select Ctrl+A and disable the SCSI BIOS - if you have devices attached, select DISABLE: Scan Bus. Optionally, you can move the RAID controller to Slot 5. Optimally, you should do both.