Desktop

Ask something
Discussion Locked

Please help (Chas?)

0 helpful
13 replies

by lnn5432

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.
First of all I want to tell of my appreciation to this site and all who help by posting reply's (TheChas always comes to mind here, especially). I have been a member for over a year and this is the only site I need for my own questions regarding computer related tasks and troubles. I work at a High School with 600 or so computers, Win2K and 98, a server that has approx 80Gig H/D, split between C & D drives, 20 Gig and 60, respectively. The Server is W2K Server, upgraded from Win NT last July, working fine since. There are dual 550 MHz processors, RAID 5. There was a loud beeping tone coming from the server the other day, so I restarted it & the sound went away but ever since I have been unable to access Drive D, there was a red "X", it was offline & I was unable to reconnect. I restarted again & noticed while boot up that the secondary H/D failed & the "D" drive was not there at all in Windows. I restarted, accessed the BIOS, accepted Load Fail Safe Settings & restarted again. Now the computer will not boot into windows at all & the first BiOS screen stops and at the bottom it says "Press F2 to enter Setup"..it will not go beyond this screen...Pressing F2 does nothing. Can anyone help me to let me know what I had done wrong, and possibly how to fix? The 3 computer labs with 42 workstations each are dependent on the guest profile from this server. Help please! Thank you so much (again), in advance!

13 replies

by gigelul

Need more details.
1. What is you server configuration? How many HDD's and what type: SCSI or IDE.
2. You said that you have a RAID5 HDD configuration. This configuration is fault tolerant and uses a minimum of 3 HDD. If in this configuration, oneHDD failed, you can't have the problem that you describe. The two remaining HDD will works fine until you will change the fault HDD.
3. About the BIOS (there are many options which can determine the computer to stop booting). If you have a mixed configuration server with IDE and SCSI devices (HDD) and the OS is on a SCSI HDD, check and enable SCSI boot.

by gjayag501

probably from the bios itself, it was hang up already bios should initiate the first command quering all devices attach to the server,if there is a connector inside (motherboard) to clear bios setup, try it, and try to search also if the processor fan was also functional, if you identitfy which harddisk was damage remove it first when you where able to acces bios setup.

by ann777

There's usually a jumper inside your box (on the systemboard near the CMOS battery), that will clear the BIOS settings. Since you cannot get into BIOS, that's the first thing I'd try. If that does not work, then remove the CMOS battery for 5-15 minutes and then try again. Best alternative is to dig up the manual from the systemboard manufacturer and see what they suggest for clearing the BIOS. If you know the manufacturer of your systemboard and can get to their website, as a last resort,you could try flashing the BIOS. Generally, most systems "upgraded" from WinNT to Win2000, require a BIOS upgrade as well (to take advantage of the enhanced features of Win2000 and eliminate problems).

The second issue here sounds as if Drive D has crashed. But your posting is a bit confusing. Do you have one 80 GB hdd or two separate hdds? Are you using RAID or not? Are the drives SCSI or IDE? If D is actually a separate physical drive, then unplug the power to it and see if the computer will at least boot. If that works, then replace drive D.

by lnn5432

Okay, I took out the battery & the computer was able to reboot! Thanks! But now as I have opened the computer, there were only 3 harddrives, not 5 like the purchase order called for & the "D" drive is still not showing....it looks like I only have17 gig "c" drive. How can I tell which physical drive is bad? Anyone? Thanks again! Linda

by cg it

loading the failsafe BIOS settings on the mainboard sets the BIOS to the factory default settings which for boot order is floppy, CD-ROM Hdd. The BIOS detects if you have one or more hard drive connected to the IDE channels [or RAID controller channels if you use those] and allows you to choose which hdd drive to boot from. If the RAID 5 configuration in Windows assigned a different Hdd identification [other than the default hdd-0]to the bootable RAID5 array [such as 0-RAID5] then you must reset the boot order to this bootable RAID array designation. Further, if the previous BIOS settings allowed a PnP aware O/S for IRQ assignment, the default BIOS setting will set that back to default NO [usually]. Different mainboard manufacturers havedifferent default settings [but not by much]. Since your using one drive and creating virtual drives for RAID5, the physical drive is the 80GB drive. Running scandisk with a surface scan will determine if there are physical errors on the drive whichwill required you to replace it. Most new mainboards have S.M.A.R.T build in which monitors drives for physical errors and alerts you to them. This is enabled in the BIOS of your mainboard. Nifty tool to have enabled instead of having to use scandisk to determine physical errors.

Since RAID5 is a Windows created RAID and not a physically created RAID array using the RAID controller on the mainboard, maintenance of that RAID array is done in the computer management console in admin tools.

by cg it

to get your server back online enter the BIOS and find BOOT Sequence setup [usually in advanced settings]. You can use the page up and page down keys to scroll though the options [like floppy, CD-Rom,Zip, etc. scrolling through the list you should find your hdd AND if Windows assigned a hdd designation for the RAID5 bootable array, that. Change the boot order to boot from the standard hdd to the bootable RAID5 arrary. Then when the BIOS searches for boot devices it will boot from the RAID5 array if no other bootable system files are detected in the floppy or CD-ROM. This should get you to booting to the RAID5 array and your server. IF not, your probably going to have to recreate your RAID array.

This discussion is closed to new replies.