asked on

Dell 2850 boot

I'm contracting for a small company which is trying to bring an old 2850 online after a couple years of being shelved. The system was running server 2003 and some databases. The data on board is critical to the company. The system is hanging at the BCM Setup message.

At first it would display no boot device available, now it displays a blinking cursor.
The only thing that changed between the two was my booting into safe mode and running a fixmbr and fixboot.

I also did a little trouble shooting with Knoppix. Before the fixmbr I only saw /dev/sda.
After the fixmbr I see /dev/sda1 but it reports an unknown file system.

The RAID utility doesn't show that the system is degraded and the boot drive is set correctly.

What more can I try to resolve this?

ken2421

Using Knoppix will allow you to browse the data and move the critical databases via the network. That would be my first effort. Were you able to locate the databases?

Ken

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

nobus

membership

This solution is only available to members.

To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.

Start Free Trial

nobus

oh yes - you better connect this drive as slave to another system for the recovery !

timbrigham

ASKER

I already tried Knoppix guys. Sorry that my above statement was written a little out of order.
This is a RAID array in a server.

The exact steps I followed were:

Server did not boot
Boot with Knoppix
Knoppix sees /dev/sda but not sda1. Trying to mount /dev/sda results in unknown file system; forcing ntfs file system failed
Boot off Windows 2003 install CD
Repair console, fixmbr and fixboot
Knoppix sees /dev/sda1. Trying to mount sda1 results in unknown file system and force fails.

nobus

what about my comments?

timbrigham

ASKER

nobus, I handed this off to a local data recovery company and located the best available copy of backups.
Thanks for the direction.

nobus

tx for the feedback. for data recovery, i always suggest these guys : http://www.gillware.com/