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Windows 2000 wont boot after RAID 5 Rebuild
I have a windows 2000 server that had a drive fail. This drive is part of a RAID 5 array with 3 drives. It runs from an Adaptec 2100s controller card.
I pulled the bad drive and replaced with an exact same model drive. I rebuilt the array from within the Adaptec control menu as there was no hot spare setup to initiate automatic rebuild.
The rebuild was successful for the 68gb logical drive.
When the system went to reboot, it did the RAM check, the BIOS check, passed the Adaptec RAID 5 check without errors, then displayed the keyboard and monitor are connect message; then the screen cleared and where it normally would display Windows 2000 loading, it displays a single blinking cursor.
It wont' boot. There are no warning such as invalid boot device or ntldr issues.
I tried cloaning the array to an IDE drive. This was successful but when viewing in Windows 7, while there is a drive letter assgined and it appears in disk manager, it says that its in RAW and not NTFS. Using recovery software on the IDE drive I can see the original data still on the IDE drive.
I've used gparted and partion magic on the windows 2000 box with the RAID 5 and while it can see the array and that it is NTFS, it can't access the drive to check or repair. There is a boot flag enabled on the partition.
When trying to use recover using the windows 2000 server CD it says there is no installation found.
I'm at a lose as to what to try next. I really dont want to reformat as we only back up data and not the whole disk. This also acts as our BDC; well now a PDC since our original PDC had to go virtualized and the AD and SAM doesn't work properly; until they approve a new server.
I need any sort of suggestions or help. Been at this for 12 hours and only 10 left till the regular folks come in and need access.
I pulled the bad drive and replaced with an exact same model drive. I rebuilt the array from within the Adaptec control menu as there was no hot spare setup to initiate automatic rebuild.
The rebuild was successful for the 68gb logical drive.
When the system went to reboot, it did the RAM check, the BIOS check, passed the Adaptec RAID 5 check without errors, then displayed the keyboard and monitor are connect message; then the screen cleared and where it normally would display Windows 2000 loading, it displays a single blinking cursor.
It wont' boot. There are no warning such as invalid boot device or ntldr issues.
I tried cloaning the array to an IDE drive. This was successful but when viewing in Windows 7, while there is a drive letter assgined and it appears in disk manager, it says that its in RAW and not NTFS. Using recovery software on the IDE drive I can see the original data still on the IDE drive.
I've used gparted and partion magic on the windows 2000 box with the RAID 5 and while it can see the array and that it is NTFS, it can't access the drive to check or repair. There is a boot flag enabled on the partition.
When trying to use recover using the windows 2000 server CD it says there is no installation found.
I'm at a lose as to what to try next. I really dont want to reformat as we only back up data and not the whole disk. This also acts as our BDC; well now a PDC since our original PDC had to go virtualized and the AD and SAM doesn't work properly; until they approve a new server.
I need any sort of suggestions or help. Been at this for 12 hours and only 10 left till the regular folks come in and need access.
you may be forced to boot from the windows 2000 install CD and enter the recovery console where you can type in bootcfg,,, it's been a while since I have done win 2000. not sure if you can do a FIX BOOT or FIXMBR,, hope this helps,
ASKER
I've tried using the recovery console but it says it cannot find a windows installation and then quits.
that may be the driver missing for your raid-5 controller at win 2000 install time. if the server has a floopy drive you can install the driver during the setup process.
ASKER
Got the adaptec raid drivers loaded during windows 2000 loading. tried fixboot and nothing happened. fixmbr is up next.
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ASKER
Was able to load the recovery console using the RAID control drivers. ntdetect and ntldr were missing. Loaded those from the CD. WINNT is also missing. chkdsk discovered numerous errors on the drive. Found pieces of WINNT in the chkdsk found files but they are scattered. Not sure why a simple rebuild of an array would cause so many disk errors and data corruption. Unfortunately no full disk backup exists of this server; though we have the application data on tape. Final solution is reformatting.
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