[dsenette]

paranoia....i mean....if at all possible it would be best to test this on a machine that isn't your domain controller...or primary server at least....

but in theory ADDING to a mirror shouldn't screw with the existing data...

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Just to stoke the paranoia.. the C drive on this machine has errors. That is the boot drive of our file server, (in some cases) application server, Norton anti virus corporate edition controller, and domain controller.


No one is allowed to store anything locally.....

I had mentioned weekly for 3 months that the C drive has errors before anything was discussed about fixing it.

[bobmad]

Just to stoke the paranoia.. the C drive on this machine has errors. That is the boot drive of our file server, (in some cases) application server, Norton anti virus corporate edition controller, and domain controller.


No one is allowed to store anything locally.....

I had mentioned weekly for 3 months that the C drive has errors before anything was discussed about fixing it.

[dsenette]

I had mentioned weekly for 3 months that the C drive has errors before anything was discussed about fixing it.

nobody listens to IT...untill they look for someone to blame or can't get to their poker websites

like...physical drive errors? yech

[bobmad]

Pitfall #1. A hard drive must be "dynamic" to be involved in a mirror. External hard drives cannot be dynamic. SO I've started by copying E drive to external 500 Gig. Once that finishes (tonight) tomorrow I'm going in and removing E drive from server and installinf External 500 Gig as internal. Then I convert it to dynamic and mirror.

Once that's done I'll pull the C and D drive out and put in other 500 gig and mirror. 2 shutdowns and hardware swaps. Better than the three I thought I'd need, not as good as the 1 I thought I could do.

Stay tunned for more pitfalls..... (I hope not)

[bobmad]

Pitfall #2. A hard drive must be "dynamic" to be involved in a mirror....the drive containing C and D also had a small OEM EISA partition. This drive could not be made dynamic.

I used a variation of desenete's idea of the backup tape. Made a NEW backup tape with all of C and D on it and redirected output of the restore to my 500 gig (now in the case).

[bobmad]

pitfall #3 new 500 gig with all the files "restored" from the tape will not boot.

Installed windows 2003 server to the drive. ONce that finishes (yes still running) I'll restore again and hope bootible from fresh install and data fron "restore" is enough to make all good.

[bobmad]

#4 is it... I cannot get a Dynamic disk to boot on our windows 2003 server, server. (boy, that is awkward) So I will not be mirroring at this time.

I hope someone out there can let me know how to boot a dynamic disk for windows 2003 server. (Or at least what would prevent it, so I can figure out my issue).



#5 our Dell server came with a restore CD set rather than a "real" copy of windows 2003 small business server. What's the difference? No repair option or repair console.
I'm less pleased with Dell at this time than I have been in the past. Even their XP restore CDs allow repair install and repair console.

Imagine my surprise when I pop the disk in and try to fix the disk that wouldn't boot (I thought scandisk and fixmbr might help) and the 2003 server install stuff starts. I wait for it to get to the place where I can select repair console or install (allowing me to get into the repair option) and I wait... and I wait....

I had a disk with 3 installs of SBS 2003. I did not believe that it COULD be missing repair console, and assumed I missed a timed "select in 30 seconds" dialog box so I tried it again....


So the net result.... I've now got the original C&D drive in the server (I removed the EISA partition after a LONG while trying to), and a dynamic 500 Gig in the server covering the duties of the old "E" drive, it also has a partition (or whatever they are calling it for a dynamic disk) for the C and the D drives. The C and D have the data from the C and D restored (from our Veritas backup-exec).

I stayed late Friday (just 1.5 hours) came in on Saturday at 5 PM because the data transfer was taking forever (I had a friend check progress from time to time) and I left at 5PM on Sunday. so 25.5 hours worth of work (I'm only counting the time AT work) and I've expanded the size of "E" and made some great backups of C and D. I also got to stretch my vocabulary, practice stress relief techniques, and gain some little (but not enough) knowledge.



I need to figure out how to get the 500 to boot so I can remove the C (system) and D (boot another little "gotcha" from the IT "mercs" (mercenaries) that set this up).

Once I 'm somewhat sure the dynamic 500 will boot routinely I'll add the second one and mirror....

Edited by bobmad, 16 July 2007 - 09:15 AM.

[dsenette]

i think you're gonna have to go about doing this completely different...and it might require purchasing some software to "ghost" the server...

in theory...with your tape backups (i mean that's what they're made for right?) you should be able to put the new drives in...install windows and your backup software then do a complete restore from the tapes...of course this is all theory..

[bobmad]

I did find out we have GHOST. I'll look at it more later. After that weekend I don't want to sit in front of the server any time soon. (Ok I WILL, just don't want to)

If I go to server now I'll have 2 levels of bosses freaking out. Could be fun.. but not smart.

[dsenette]

with ghost you should be able to do a direct disk to disk copy of the server to the new drives....you may have to edit some boot info...but...maybe not...you'll have to see once it's done

[bobmad]

gparted will deffinitely do the partition resize...windows is abismal at resizing anything...

I should have downloaded it and played with it beforehand. I couldn't get it in a usable form. It's a .tar.mk2 file, and I had no way to unwrap it... (got the mk2 dealt with but the tar extractors I could find came wrapped as a .tar and didn't self extract for me). I will also add that it was late, I was tired, frustrated and concerned.... (not about gparted).


I'm going to work on getting together a nice "tool chest". Anti-malware, hard disk utilities, file utilities, maintenance tools and the like. They will be programs I can use whether it is my grandmother's machine with issues again or my server at work. May need a bigger thumb drive....

I'll search GTG for recommendations, then I'll play with the tools so I know how to use them at least some.

After that Dell no repair console thing I have decided */ boomingvoice on I will not be without tools again. */boomingvoice off

[bobmad]

with ghost you should be able to do a direct disk to disk copy of the server to the new drives

I love that.. a $70 program will most likely do what I need better than the $1000 program (and tape drive and tapes).


I did try Ghost, but I was stupid. I tried to ghost from an external drive to an internal drive. Ghost added a partition to my boot disk so it could restart in DOS (actually caused some of my boot issues) then couldn't see the USB drive due to a lack of drivers. So every time I'd try to boot I'd get the Ghost DOS option....

Next time I play with it I'll use 2 internal drives (like I've got now).

[dsenette]

yeah...i'd put one of the 500's in...and ghost directly from C to the 500....

[Troy]

gparted will deffinitely do the partition resize...windows is abismal at resizing anything...

I should have downloaded it and played with it beforehand. I couldn't get it in a usable form. It's a .tar.mk2 file, and I had no way to unwrap it... (got the mk2 dealt with but the tar extractors I could find came wrapped as a .tar and didn't self extract for me). I will also add that it was late, I was tired, frustrated and concerned.... (not about gparted).


I'm going to work on getting together a nice "tool chest". Anti-malware, hard disk utilities, file utilities, maintenance tools and the like. They will be programs I can use whether it is my grandmother's machine with issues again or my server at work. May need a bigger thumb drive....

I'll search GTG for recommendations, then I'll play with the tools so I know how to use them at least some.

After that Dell no repair console thing I have decided */ boomingvoice on I will not be without tools again. */boomingvoice off

Ooh I like that booming voice feature...

I've been watching this thread still, very interesting... Anyway, you can download GParted as an .iso (image) file, ready to burn to a disc... Here is the link for the live cd. This is what I was thinking of before, and definitely one to add to your "tool chest".

If I may, my tool chest currently consists of:

* 2GB usb flash drive w/ U3 programs (openoffice, firefox, thunderbird, commander keen) and a folder with all my anti-malware tools from G2G
* My Windows XP cd, you have no idea how many times I've helped someone else out using it for recovery console etc...
* GParted live cd, as previously mentioned
* Ultimate Boot CD
* Super GRUB Disk
* A few linux distro cd's, like SimplyMEPIS, Ubuntu, Puppy Linux, PCLinuxOS
* And of course, a screwdriver set, a whole bunch of sorted screws and data cables and power adapters

Now all I need is a job where I can use this stuff!!!!!

Don't worry though, I can imagine how frustrating this is for you, just hang in there, you'll get it done.
Cheers

[dsenette]

ruth and bob...if you're looking for THE TOOL...get the UBCD4WIN...it's a bootable XP disk with more tools in it than you could imagine..i've used the thing so many times it's unbelievable...they haven't included GParted in the build yet but it does have dban and memtest as well as a bootable RC...VERY handy