TeraByte Unlimited

Hi,

Windows Server 2003 on a Dell PowerEdge 2900 with RAID.

5 hard drives in the machine. One hard drive failed. Server rebooted itself but couldn't boot. I replaced the dead hard drive. Machine won't boot. I assume the dead drive contained the boot track. Booted with IFD. Tried to restore and got the error "Cannot write to first track." During the boot process the server said it failed to create a logical drive. I assume the logical drive is created by the hardware out of the 5 hard disks in the server. I know the IFD image is good as I've restored some of the data to another computer for users who needed it. The new hard drive is exactly the same make and model as the old one.

Is this an IFD issue or a hardware / RAID configuration / Windows Server 2003 issue?

Thank you.

You have to configure the RAID so it's part of the RAID.

Make sure the MBR protection option is off if the BIOS has one.

You could limit the number of sectors restored, such as choosing to restore
1 sector.

"Thunder" wrote in message news:[email protected]...

Hi,

Windows Server 2003 on a Dell PowerEdge 2900 with RAID.

5 hard drives in the machine. One hard drive failed. Server rebooted
itself but couldn't boot. I replaced the dead hard drive. Machine won't
boot. I assume the dead drive contained the boot track. Booted with IFD.
Tried to restore and got the error "Cannot write to first track." During
the boot process the server said it failed to create a logical drive. I
assume the logical drive is created by the hardware out of the 5 hard disks
in the server. I know the IFD image is good as I've restored some of the
data to another computer for users who needed it. The new hard drive is
exactly the same make and model as the old one.

Is this an IFD issue or a hardware / RAID configuration / Windows Server
2003 issue?

Thank you.

Resolved. Even though the server is long out of warranty Dell helped me for free. 2 of the 5 hard drives were listed as "foreign" in CTRL-R configuration. Dell Rep had me import foreign config, then clear foreign config (that caused 1 hard drive to no longer be foreign), then the last foreign hard drive was set to "hot spare". The server then booted and the RAID rebuilt itself. It seems no data was lost. Image backup wasn't needed but it was good that I could prove to my boss that had RAID failed as a first line defense against data loss that I had come up with a valid second line of defense.