Windows Forum

Ask something
Discussion Locked

NT Server will not Boot with Boot Disk

0 helpful
10 replies

by brent t

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

Hello

Had a major crash of my IBM Netfinity Server. We have duplexed SCSI drives, my primary died but I still had the secondary. However the secondary will not boot without the NT Boot disk, I checked the Boot.ini on the drive, it is correct. The partition is active, I am looking at possible MBR problem. I was going to use disksave but there were not any copies made of the boot sector so I have nothing to restore. My tape is no good, it is an image backup and it only backed up the brokenboot record which I am thinking was this way for awhile.

Any suggesions??

Thanks
Brent

10 replies

by brent t

Although I thought this would do the trick, NT would not allow me to re-install to another dir on the partition. I think it has something to do with the backup I have and how the parition is setup. I have decided to re-install NT fresh, and do a file by file restore of the drive and re-install the apps I require. Thanks for the help. Brent

by xanderoth

Yikes- what a bad day you must have had. Just as a thought- check the BIOS boot order- you can prevent your server from booting to the HD altogether.

And remember, if all else fails...
Fdisk, format and forget it. :)

by brent t

Boot order is fine, I wish I could forget it though but that's not going to happen.

Thanks

by frobo

Hi,

yes You need this Nt-Boot Disk, cause the SW-RAID option of NT copies all things within a NTFS Partition on the Sceond DIsk. But the MBR and the Bootrecord are outside the NTFS-Partition, so you could not boot from the second Disk, this behavior is per design.

Just get an Desktop with NT-Workstation or Server, and format a Disk with the Explorer. This will make the Floppydisk bootable. Then copy a few Files on it: Ntdetect, ntloader and the Boot.ini from the Netfinityserver on it.
Then you have ot edit the Arcpath in the boot.ini for proper booting from the second Disk. First replace the faulty Harddisk, and then change the Arcpath for Disk from 0 to 1 (or just that you configured).
Put this Disk in the Server, and check that the Bios let you boot from Floppy( somtime this is disabled).
Maybe you have to edit the Arcpath in the Boot.ini somtimes, till youv'e got the right config for that disk.

Hopt it Helps

regards

Frobo

by frobo

After you boot from the second disk, you have to broke the SW-Raid and re new it again.

Maybe it's better to install an HW-Raid Controller for that Server.

Regards

Frobo

by brent t

I can change the Boot.ini to point to the 2nd drive, problem is that drive behaves the same as the primary drive. I'm starting to look at the controller BIOS to see if something is up there.

Thanks
Brent

This discussion is closed to new replies.