How do I get the data from a mirrored volume?

[Vassili]

Here's the situation: I have a server that is
bluescreening, don't know yet if it is just a windows
problem or also a hardware problem. It has 2 mirrored hard
drives, as far as I know both of them are still good, but
definetely at least one. Question is: how do I get the
data off of them? As I understand if I just stick them
into another PC it will not recognize them as anything
useful. All articles about importing volumes I found
assume that I have a functional windows running to begin
with, which I don't. Unfortunately backup didn't work last
2 days also, so I hate to lose 3 days worth of work,
especially knowing that all that data is right there.
Please help!

 

[Bjorn Landemoo]

Vassili

If the blue screen depends on a failed hard disk, you will need a fault
tolerant boot diskette.

Format a diskette from another Win2000 installation, and copy the files
boot.ini, ntdetect.com, ntldr and ntbootdd.sys (if it exists in C:\) to it.

Edit boot.ini so that the ARC path points towards your second disk on your
target server. This can be tricky if you don't know what it was.

If the ARC path was: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
change it to: multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS

This MS Knowledge Base describes the details about the ARC path:

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=102873

If your blue screen depends on another problem, this problem might be
mirrored to the other disk as well.

This article has more information on importing dynamic disks to another
installation.

http://support.microsoft.com/?id=222189

To do this, a computer running Win2000 Server is needed, but the original
disk does not need to have a functional Windows installation.

In the worst case, get a third hard disk and install Win2000 Server on it,
in the same machine, but remove the mirrored hard disks first.

Best regards

Bjorn

 

[Vassili]

Yes, that's what I was looking for, remembered reading
about it, but not the exact procedure. Thank you, that
helps