Question

ARC Path for new HD?

Asked by: jonathanv_00

A Windows 2000 server in one of our offices is running out of disk space, and I want to add a hard drive.  This machine currently has one small drive (4GB) and two 18GB drives.  The 4GB drive has the OS on it and is mirrored to a 4GB partition on one of the 18GB drives. The remaining 13GB is mirrored to a 13GB partition on the second drive. I have a third, identical 18GB drive that I would like to install in the server and set up as a third drive in a RAID-5 setup.

Here's the question - what's the best way to put in the new drive and not have to re-install Win2000?  Can I re-write the ARC path in boot.ini to use the mirrored drive (Disk 1 instead of the Disk 0 (4GB drive)), remove the 4GB drive, shut down the server, and then install the additional 18GB drive?  On rebooting, I would use Disk Manager to create a RAID-5 array for both the OS partitions (4GB) and data partitions (3x13GB, for a usable 26GB).

Don't know if that's clear, so let's try this:

Disk 0 - 4GB partition with Win2000
Disk 1 - 18GB - 4GB partition with mirror of Disk 0, 13GB partition with data
Disk 2 - 18GB - 13GB partition with mirror or Disk 1; unused 4GB partition

Want to add: 18GB drive with partitions of 4GB and 13GB.

boot.ini now reads:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Server" /fastdetect

I know this probably isn't that difficult of a question, but it's worth a premium as I'd like to do this in a couple of days. Thanks in advance.  

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Asked On
2003-05-05 at 17:20:25ID20606557
Tags

arc

,

path

,

2000

Topic

Windows 2000 Operating System

Participating Experts
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Points
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Comments
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Answers

 

by: JammyPakPosted on 2003-05-06 at 06:46:58ID: 8471216

I see a problem with your logic:
"On rebooting, I would use Disk Manager to create a RAID-5 array for both the OS partitions (4GB) and data partitions (3x13GB, for a usable 26GB)."

Couple of problems here:
1)Your 4GB OS partition would not be part of the array, so you would lose the protection that you used to have there. You can't include both the 4GB and 13GB partitions from the same disk in your array. If you did, you would only be able to use 4GB from each other partition in this case.
2) You're wasting 10GB of usable space(you could have 3x18 GB array instead of a 3x13GB array)

I see you're not using SCSI, so I assume you have a max of 4 drives here?

You could:
1) Keep the 4GB drive for OS (unprotected, so back it up) + 3x18GB RAID5
or -
2) Keep the 4GB for OS, mirrored to 2nd drive, and use the remaining 3x13GB for RAID5 (with ~10GB you can use for something else)
or -
I think the ideal situation is:
3) 4 18GB drives, 1 RAID5 array of 4GB partitions for the OS
and 1 RAID5 array of 13GB partitions for the data.

I believe you could boot off of the mirror and removed the 4GB drive, then added in 2 more 18GB drives, and extend your data array to 4x13GB. Then you'd want to create a RAID5 array using the 4 GB left on each drive. The only thing I would want to verify is that you can create a software RAID5 array from a partition without blowing that partition away. I think you can - just select the 4GB OS partition, then hold Cntrl and select the other 3 blocks of empty space and create the array.

HTH,
JP

 

by: JammyPakPosted on 2003-05-06 at 06:51:11ID: 8471250

Wait, I think I just had a brain cramp. You *are* planning to do what I was thinking! Ha - sorry, I interpreted one of your statements incorrectly.

So - yes, you can do it, and yes, booting off the mirror involves changing the ARC path in the boot.ini to the correct drive. Assuming you have IDE, you would have to change the rdisk(0) to rdisk(1) - and also verify that it's still the 1st partition on that drive, and that the directory is still called Winnt.

Sorry for the babbling, I need another coffee!!!

 

by: jonathanv_00Posted on 2003-05-06 at 10:32:26ID: 8473345

Thanks - I hear ya on the coffee.  But we do have SCSI disks, or maybe I'm confused about the ARC syntax.... Just looked at the MS Knowledge base, and we're using the multi syntax correctly - can be used for either IDE or SCSI drives.  

I think I skipped a step above, too: after re-writing the ARC path, I should break the mirror, correct?  Then re-boot, correct?

Thanks again!

 

 

by: JammyPakPosted on 2003-05-06 at 11:28:43ID: 8473892

Yes, you're right, SCSI controllers can be identified as either multi or scsi (mutli if they have scsi bios enabled, scsi if not). IDE controllers are always multi. I thought it sounded like you were restricted to 4 drives, so I just assumed IDE. Doesn't really matter, the process is the same.
You need to break the mirror so you can remove the 4GB drive. You could also break the mirror after the drive has been removed - basically simulating a drive failure. You need to reboot for the boot.ini changes to take affect. To minimize the reboots, I would break the mirror, change the boot.ini, shutdown, remove the 4GB drive, and the boot up onto the new OS drive. If you can afford more reboots, it would be good to change the boot.ini and do a test reboot before breaking the mirror or removing the 4GB drive.

JP

 

by: jonathanv_00Posted on 2003-05-06 at 17:06:41ID: 8475680

Thanks, that's just what I was looking for.  I've warned that office that I'll be taking things offline for a while, so I will do the test reboot before breaking the mirror.  Very good advice!

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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