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Server 2003 std Hardware Raid 1 – please help

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Hello all, I really need some help on this one.
I have a HP ml110 that came stock with 1 80gig sata drive in and we loaded server 2003 std on it 3 months back. The directors decided now that they want Raid 1 on the server.
I was mistaken to believe that I could enable RAID 1 in the bios and set the copy and it would work without the worry of a complete reload of the os. But of course server does not boot. When i disable the raid – it boots fine, now I believe this is because the software has never seen raid and therefore cannot load from it.
Is there a way that I can manipulate/trick the software when in IDE mode to get the required software into it to allow for RAID 1 boot?
Is there any way at all to use the RAID1 hardware function without having to rebuild from scratch?
I do not want to use software raid if I can use the hardware way without too much effort.
Any help will be greatly appreciated.

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Clarifications

In reply to Server 2003 std Hardware Raid 1 – please help

Clarifications

:-(

In reply to Server 2003 std Hardware Raid 1 – please help

I have a bad news. You must make a fresh install of your windows 2003 server if you want to install to hardware RAID1. The good news is that you have some migration tools on http://www.microsoft.com for migrating a lot of your present server function to the new fresh installation.

It is do-able – but fiddly

In reply to Server 2003 std Hardware Raid 1 – please help

What you can do is ghost the current sata drive onto an IDE drive – Plug the ide drive into the single IDE controller with the Sata drive(s) disconnected. Enable the Raid controller and boot from the IDE – This will let Windows 2003 detect the raid controller – install the raid drivers and reboot – Assuming the Raid controller all looks ok in device manager ghost from the IDE drive to the newly created Raid array – this bits a little fiddly as ghost won’t recognise the Raid drives, you need to use a WinPE boot CD with the raid drivers installed – we made one following instructions on http://www.ultimatebootcd.com – As I said, its fiddly, obviously make a good backup first but the theory is that you’ll have the backup on the IDE drive to roll back to. I’ve used this method a few times on different systems but lately on a preloaded ML110 that came without raid enabled.

Same problem on a ML 100 can’t figure out WinPE boot CD

In reply to It is do-able – but fiddly

I followed the link, but I can seem to figure out what I need to do to create the boot CD, so I can Ghost the OS from the IDE drive to the RAID in the server.

http://www.ubcd4win.com/

In reply to Same problem on a ML 100 can’t figure out WinPE boot CD

ok – this site is the windows one – the other site is for a dos boot cd.

Download the tool, follow the instructions to make the disk and boot off it – It includes adaptec raid drivers which covers the raid used onboard on the ML110’s (and probably the ML100). When I made my disk the drivers were a seperate download but its all in one now so it should still contain the drivers you need.

I have to comment I’ve not been very impressed with the ML110 onboard raid though – I’ve had two sites with corrupt Mirror’s lately and before anyone comments:

a) – 1 of them was a fresh install NOT a ghost like we’re talking about here.

b) – No – write cache wasn’t enabled.

Its not TRUE hardware raid – it requires the operating system to be running to do the mirroring and in my experience these cheap raid solutions don’t save you as often as they should – all to often when a drive fails you find the 2nd drive won’t boot windows or is totally corrupted.

You cannot go past good backups!

Thanks I’ll try that and thanks for the heads-up

In reply to http://www.ubcd4win.com/

I did manage to get the raid setup by Ghosting the IDE drive to one of the SATA drives (using another machine, all of my tools hung on the ML 110 when I tried them).

I then installed the drive back into the ML 110 booted to make sure it worked. Then rebuilt the raid and to my amazement its now running.

I guess we get what we pay for…

well you have to add in a second 80 SATA drive

In reply to Server 2003 std Hardware Raid 1 – please help

Since it’s SATA, SATA it’s a type of RAID anyways.

So, you add in the second drive, create the RAID 1 Mirrored Array, make sure the boot order is booting to the RAID array.

typically during the RAID array setup, the RAID controller will ask if you want to duplicate the drive on SATA channel 0 to SATA channel 1, you say yes that will create the mirror.

But…………..

In reply to well you have to add in a second 80 SATA drive

I beleive his problem is that once you switch the onboard sata from Standard to Raid mode the Operating system won’t boot as there are no drivers present for the raid.

You are correct in how to create a raid array and this would be fine if HP shipped the servers preinstalled with the controller in raid mode but they don’t – they ship it in standard SATA compatible mode.

but SATA is a RAID in a way

In reply to But…………..

edited: Ah, The ML 100 G2 has an Adaptec SA2410 SATA controller card.

I have to look up what Adaptec does for their SATA before I stick foot in mouth… lol

here’s a KB link for Adaptec 2410SA controller.

http://adaptec-tic.adaptec.com/cgi-bin/adaptec_tic.cfg/php/enduser/std_alp.php?p_lva=&p_li=&p_page=1&p_cv=&p_pv=2.225&p_prods=222%2C,v2>&p_cats=0&p_hidden_prods=&prod_lvl1=222&prod_lvl2=225&cat_lvl1=0&p_search_text=&p_new_search=1&p_search_type=answers.search_nl

It’s still SATA RAID so I can’t see why he can’t enter the SATA RAID utility and create the mirrored Array after adding in a second drive and changing the striped array to mirrored array. The drives for SATA should already be loaded for the H/W and windows to use the SATA drives. Still have to break[delete] the striped array, then create the mirrored array, mirror the drive contents.

boot.ini might get messed up after that but…

the boot order will have to change to recognize the new RAID array.

The raid is disabled by default

In reply to but SATA is a RAID in a way

Out of the box These servers come pre-configured with the raid controller disabled and are running in normal Sata with no drivers required. If you want to enable them in raid mode you change it to raid in the bios, this enables the adaptec chipset and rom and you have to hit F6 and install the drivers to install windows in this mode.

As a result he can add a second drive, build a mirror with 1st drive as source but windows won’t boot because it won’t find the drive/controller.

Personally I think they should ship them with raid mode enabled and if theres only one disk run it as JBOD mode so later a raid array can be built and the drivers will already be in the OS.

They ship them with no floppy drive and yet you have to use a floppy to add the drivers at install – they state you have to buy an HP USB floppy drive if you wish to enable raid.

Great servers otherwise 🙂

normal SATA

In reply to The raid is disabled by default

well like I said, I’m a little behind on the newer SATA. The older SATA Promise was RAID. you had to create an array even if it was just 1 drive so drivers would already be installed.

HP has got to have a fix for this or someway to make it work. They ship the thing with the Adaptec RAID controller disabled, then they had to think about someone deciding hey, want RAID…

SIIG SATA II PCI-X Raid Controller will work fine

In reply to Server 2003 std Hardware Raid 1 – please help

Install the controller and let the O/S see it. The controller bios has a offline or online copy option.

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