Rearranging Server 2008 Drives

[ABolster]

Currently I have Server 2008 64bit on a system with 3 HDD's. 2 in a RAID configuration that is essentially my installation drive, and the 3rd which has essentially been my in-machine backup

I want to move this HDD into another machine but the installer stupidly used it as my boot drive. i.e i have the Boot folder on drive D: (my backup), and since im getting rid of D:, i would like to know how to do this move with as little pain as possible.

FYI the original installer didnt recognise the RAID drive without me adding extra drivers for it.

Thanks guys

 

[wahnula]

So, if I understand you correctly, essentially you have:

1. A RAID 1 (or 0???) array consisting of (2) drives, (labeled drive C:?), which is a data array or similar (that is being backed up to D
2. A third drive labeled D: that contains the Windows boot files and OS (along with apps?) that also contains the backup files.

This is an odd configuration and I can see why you would want to change it. The first thing you should ask yourself is: will you spend more time reconfiguring the current status quo or will you be better off just loading from scratch and recovering data from backup?

Should you decide to reconfigure, my first order of business would be to get another HDD and get a good backup of everything, test it if possible. Then, partition the RAID array (if it's RAID 0 I would start from scratch, so I will assume it's RAID 1) with at least 25 GB for the OS & apps, then, using Ghost 2003 (works with Server 2003, don't know about 2008) or another cloning app (Acronis Server is expen$ive) and clone the boot drive to that partition. Although unconventional, you should probably leave the labeling scheme the same.

After cloning and before reboot, shut down the machine and set the new partition as boot, you should get it to boot and see the data.

I would really give some serious thought to just starting from scratch.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[ABolster]

that was my plan too, which is great, until you get to the bit where the reason i raided the drives in the first place was read speed so i RAID 0'd.

in the days of xp this (or similar) situations would be resolved from the repair console on the installation cd. I have the drivers for the raid array knocking about here somewhere, so would the repair console > fixboot/fixmbr do anything useful in this current situation? is the fact that my disc is raid going to effect the problem

CORRECTION & CLARIFICATION
c: Raid 0, Windows system files, programfiles, and data
d: single drive, "Boot" directory, and backup

No, i didnt ask for the boot folder to be there

No i dont know how it got there

Yes i want to move it.

Cheers

 

[wahnula]

I am lost now because I don't know the structure of Server 2008...whether the "Boot" directory is part of the Windows directory or part of the backup. I looked in my Server 2003 Windows directory and could find no "Boot" directory.

First thing I would try would be to disconnect the D: drive and see if the system boots; if not then a post in forum1674 might be more fruitful. If so, your problem is solved.

We won't get into a lecture about the horrendous lack of fault tolerance and general disregard for data safety in a RAID 0 setup, and that RAID 1 has very good read times while still providing fault tolerance. Best of luck.

Tony

Users helping Users...

 

[ABolster]

I thought it might be worthwhile to list what I've done so far and the results.
Attempted boot without D: drive > failure, no system drive found
Attempted Vista Repair > couldnt find the drive (even with drivers added)
Used live USB disk to move the Boot folder from D: to C: > copyed fine but still failed.

I think the problem is that the MBR is getting written to D: because its the first logical drive (thank you IDE....), that MBR references the bootloader in the Boot directory to open the RAID array, and then boot Vista (Server 2008 is basically vista)

So atm i am left with three options the way i see it

1) Risk copying the mbr from D: to C: using a live cd and dd, potentially corrupting the raid array

2) forget about it and buy new HDD for my backup solution (data is cheap)

3) get as much off the RAID array as possible, do a backup of whats left, wipe the array and start again (pain in the ass but would probably be cleaner)

Please someone give me another option

FYI nVidia MCP65 SATA RAID controller, yes i am using the 64 bit drivers, yes i hav tried to add all drivers at the repair dialog but it looks like its not refereshing after adding the drivers, yes if i had any hair left I'd be pulling it out.

Thanks guys

 

[ABolster]

Also, I picked RAID 0 because i do / did still have backups of my essential data and setup programs on the D: drive, so even if it did die, all i lost was the OS and the installed programs, all of which are recoverable, while gaining a massive increase in read speed and very little filespace overhead (lost about 80GB over a 1TB volume)

The reason I'm attempting to offload the backups is to do scheduled incremental backups daily, im thinking be lazy and use cygwin and rsync running as a service.

 

[wahnula]

Honestly, I would choose option (3) above, like you mention it would be cleaner. Since you don't know how that boot directory got there, there might be future surprises lurking.

At best it's unconventional; unconventional is hard to fix and/or maintain so I would bite the bullet and "own" the installation by re-doing it to my personal specs. RAID 0 or not.



Tony

Users helping Users...