What is the process to move boot drive to new storage controller?

[Guest]

I have a running W2K3 installation and want to use an IDE RAID controller for
the hard drive for data redundancy. As the system is already set-up and
running, I imagine I can't just plug the new card in, attach the drive and be
up and going. What is the process to make W2K3 add the new controller as
part of its known world without messing up my existing install?

TIA

 

[John John]

What RAID level do you want to implement and which card controller
brand/make and model number are you going to use? The best information
on how to do this might be the information provided by the hardware
manufacturer. Typically when adding these controllers to existing
Windows installations you add the hardware and device drivers to the
installation BEFORE you move the drive. Some manufacturers tell you to:

1- Load/install the Device drivers.
2- Shut down Windows, install the card (but DON'T move the drive yet!)
3- Reboot and make sure that the device is discovered and properly
recognized.

Then you can move the System & Boot drives and boot the computer and
implement RAID. Other manufacturers say to do it in a different order as:

1- Shut down Windows, install the card (but DON'T move the drive yet!)
2- Reboot and make sure that the device is discovered and properly
recognized, Load/install the Device drivers.

Whatever you do MAKE SURE that you have a complete, tested and working
backup of your current installation! If things don't go well and aren't
too badly screwed up you might have to perform an in-place upgrade
(repair installation) of Server 2003. If things go really wrong you
might LOSE ALL the data on the drive!

I think you should ask the question on one of the server newsgroups
where the server experts hang out and where more people with experience
implementing RAID can offer better technical advice.

John

 

[Guest]

I was planning on finding one of the Promise or Adaptec IDE RAID controllers
to do RAID 0 that is on the HCL. What groups would you recommend in which to
ask this question? I looked over the list and none of them jumped out at me.

 

[Guest]

Oops! That was supposed to be RAID 1 (mirroring) not 0 (striping with no
protection whatsoever) My mistake.

 

[John John]

Windows Server 2003 Storage Management Technology Center
http://support.microsoft.com/winsvr2003stor

Adaptec: http://tinyurl.com/ovmtn

http://www.promise.com/product/product_guide/productguide.htm
http://www.promise.com/support/download/download_eng.asp
(You can download manuals and setup instructions and familiarize
yourself with the setup methods)

Server Newsgroups:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/newsgroups/serveros/win2003.mspx
Try Server General and Server Setup. Someone there should be able to
offer good assistance.

Good luck, don't forget to backup before you do this!

John

 

[Matthew Speed]

Thanks for your help. I've got several of the drives that are in this
system so I'll just Ghost the HDD before I do anything. That should
count as a viable backup.

 

[John John]

Yes, that should do but test the Ghost image before you proceed! I have
seen these ghosted drives boot up to 0x7b errors more often that I can
shake a stick at, make sure the ghosted image can boot properly! And a
failed RAID configuration attempt can easily destroy all your data. I
cannot overemphasize this, be careful and try the ghosted image before
you proceed or else you may lose the whole server.

John