ASR and disk question

I'll ask the disk question first:

I have 2 WDC hard disks, one a SATA and the other an IDE, both with 160 GB of storage. I had the IDE disk initially, but since I already had the DVD-ROM connected as the other IDE device, I installed the SATA disk( I should have gone for SATA initially

). OF course the server's installed on the IDE drive. The IDE disk has started giving disk errors such as:

a). A disk read error has occurred. Press C+A+Del to restart. Restarting does not help and I end up doing a chkdsk /r using the OS CD to get the computer running again.
b). When I attempt to mirror the system (C) drive with unallocated space on the SATA disk, it goes upto 15% then stops. Disk Management shows that Disk 0 is at risk and I have to hit reactivate disk to get things moving again. But, I am able to mirror the other volumes i.e. D and E (the ones on the IDE drive)

Looking up Event Manager comes up with a rather ominous message on the lines of " \\Device0\ has a bad block".

The defrag tool shows many fragmented files. Defragging it hasnt made a difference.

Does this spell doom of this hard disk??

Now, the ASR question:

Let's say the disk containing the OS failed and I already had another disk installed on the computer before the disk failed. I then put another disk in the computer. How would the computer which disk it should restore itself to. I havent actually performed an ASR before, hence this question.

Help's greatly appreciated.

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Comments

dynamik

That sounds like a pretty serious disk problem. Something like Spinrite ($90) might get it back into shape if it's not a physical HW problem.

I believe you just select the disk you want to restore to from a list, just like selecting the disk/partition when you initially install Windows.

Rikku

Hey There,

Is the disk making any wierd sounds like the berrings scrapping or disk scratching/humming?

If your running checkdisk /r did you aslo try the /f switch and force a full checkdisk fix on bootup? If you get an error "cannot open volume for direct access" on startup" then be sure to disable any third party virus/firewall software before you reboot for the checkdisk /f.

If you run the checkdisk checks and it cannot repair the errors or you are encountering the
same error(s), I think the drive will fail in the near future.

I would backup what you can and prepare for the worst before it happens.
(First rule of IT right eh? always back it up...)

-Rikku

Essendon

Rikku, I do have the same errors cropping up again, the computer's getting slow to startup.

Last night, I had a weird message come when I switched on the server. In my last post I said I had tried to make a mirror of the system drive, in fact I attempted this 5 times over 2 days. Now when the computer starts up, it gives me a choice of which OS to start in the following order:

1. Server 2003 64bit Operating System
2. mirror C : boot plex
3. mirror C : boot plex
4. mirror C : boot plex
5. mirror C : boot plex
6. mirror C : boot plex

What in the world are the last 5 choices? Is this normal when you do a mirror of the system drive. BTW, I am getting a new HD today. I dont want to lose anything on the server, just thinking of the effort that would go into restoring the server makes me shudder! I have backed up everything, just in case...

undomiel

Check your boot.ini and see what things are pointing to in there, that might explain it a bit more. But no I would dare say that is not normal. It may be related to all the mirror attempts you had made earlier? This disk definitely sounds like it is dying.

dynamik

undomiel wrote:

It may be related to all the mirror attempts you had made earlier?

That's exactly it.

Rikku

What in the world are the last 5 choices? Is this normal when you do a mirror of the system drive. BTW, I am getting a new HD today. I dont want to lose anything on the server, just thinking of the effort that would go into restoring the server makes me shudder! I have backed up everything, just in case...

I think those bootplex entries are the incomplete mirror attempts in your bootcfg file.

I think you can rebuild the mirror after you get the new drive. Did you get a replacement for the IDE drive with a SCSI drive?

Well, look at it this way, you were able to back up the data. You should have the drive today and you can break/rebuild the mirror and you should be up and running normally again. This is fresh experience taken from your 290 study eh?:)

I had plenty of times when I had to rebuild a server from the latest backup and failed drives were common, though they seem to be less of an occurance lately. (I guess depending on what you purchase.)

If your bios supports it would enable the S.M.A.R.T technology in the bios to monitor in advance for drive problems. In the past with HP servers I used HP SIM to monitor our HP servers and setup alert conditions. Also used a bit of Dell mangement software and GFI Network Server Monitor to monitor for disk conditions, failing nics, internal processes, environmental conditions..etc. I could remote start/stop monitor anything through remote web portals from home as well. Kinda fun.

Let us know how it turns out....

-Rikku

Essendon

Thank you all for the posts, a new disk in place and everything works perfect. There's still a warranty on the busted disk, so I hope to get a replacement soon.

No more weird bootup choices. The system drive is mirrored and I was able to restore everything from the backups I had made.