NT Server crashed, can not boot please HELP!

[newnetadmin]

Scenario:
Dell PowerEdge 1300 PIII 550 512M RAM, Promise Fastrak TX2 IDE controller card with 1 mirror array setup.

This morning the server was just past the SCSI utility option on boot and cursor blinking. Array said functional. Tried to reboot several times with same result. Don't know what happened to it but whatever it was it made it reboot and it will not come back up. Checked settings on BIOS and nothing out of the ordinary. Disabled SCSI same result. if I insert a boot disk, it will boot from it past that screen so it is simply not finding a boot device. I have tried switching drives with same results. tried to repair and it can not find the drives. Drives are functional since I can slave them on an XP machine and see everything in them ok.

Can't think of anything else to do... PLEASE HELP! this is the Exchange server and people are getting desperate. Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

[SamirSolaris]

Try connecting some other drive to the Array and see, if it boots.
1.) If it is booting, that means the boot sector information of your original Disks are corrupted. Create a boot floppy by copying ntldr, ntdetect.com from other machines and boot.ini from the original Hard disk. COnnect the hard disks and try to boot from the floppy. If this works, copy the ntldr from floppy to the server.
Most probably, it seems that someone has tried to install Win2k or later versions and left it after one reboot. Due to this, when u r booting from NT CD, Windows NT is not able to read the disks(reason is NT can't read anything above NTFS 4.0)
2.) If even the other drive is not booting, this surely means there is something wrong with ARRAY controller.

Let us know, the output of the above. This should help you draw some conclusion.

 

[rtichnor]

Try to repair it again, remember to hit 'F6' before the CD boots, then load your raid drivers. Then you should be able to read the drives.

I was in this situation once, YUCK. I forget exactly when to hit 'F6' but it has to be done before the repair process takes place. It's been a while since I have had to deal with NT.

Good Luck !!!

 

[newnetadmin]

Thank you for your help, you were both right! The boot sector was corrupted and I wasn't hitting the F6 on time.

I created the boot disk and was able to boot. The major problem was that this is the Exchange server we are talking about so it had to be online.

It is now so thank you very much for your help!

Since this installation is not very reliable, I have been authorized by Mgmt to purchase a couple of servers to have as Exchange servers and have them redundant. Since I am planning on going 2000 I guess I should ask if this is possible in the 2000 forum.

Again thanks for all your help!