nx1620 disk mirroring issue.

[Kanagaraj.G]

Hi all,

i hav installed one nx1620 server with 1 CPU, 4GB RAM. In this server 72.3GB x 2 Nos. HDD is there. CU dont hav array controllers. So, this harddisks are connected to Onboard Ultra3 SCSI controller. So, CU wants to configure Software Mirror on this both harddisks. When i am converting dynamic disk in Windows, its asking to reboot server. After getting restart, its showing following error:

windows could not start because there was an error reading the boot settings from NVRAM.

Please check your firmware settings. You may need to restore your NVRAM settings from a backup.


Kindly help....

tnx
Kanagaraj

[Luk Vandenbussche]

Hi,

you probably have an rx1620

It think some thing went wrong with you partiion table. Probably your EFI and MRSP are corrupted. I am not sure if you can mirror these with windows soft.

I advise to reinstall the OS and create a dynamic disk at installation time.

[Kanagaraj.G]

Hi Luk,
inx for reply.. now i am reinstalling OS. But i would like to know, whether is there any chance to repair NVRAM or not..

One more query, i have HP's Quick restore cd. So, it will be installed as a Basic Disk.
i think, after installation, if i will convert this basic to dynamic, again earlier issue will occur.. am i right??

tnx
kanagaraj

[kris rombauts]

Hi Kanagaraj,

when you convert a basic disk to dynamic disk, the whole partition numbering changes and the problem is that the boot file still points to the original partition where the OS/bootfiles were located. After the conversion to dynamic disk this partition has another partitionnumber.

The way to fix this is to manually edit the efi\microsoft\winnt50\boot000x file on the EFI parition with 'hexedit' (a build in EFI utility) and change the partitionnumber.

I suggest you log a call with HP support to get your issue fixed. You need the boot000x file, the EFI map command output and diskpart command output to determine the correct partition number.

Reinstalling the OS will not help, you will run into the exact same issue again.


Keep also in mind that in order to achieve a redundant system and to be able to boot from the second disk (when the first disk is bad) you need to carefully folluw the procedure outlined in the article from Microsoft step by step , it is available here :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814070/en-us

Do not miss any step or (in case of a disk failure) you will not be able to fully boot/recover.
Also warn the customer that any update they do on the EFI partition should always be done on the second disks EFI partition also to avoid issues in the future, this solution of S/W mirroring has lots of disadvantages compared to a H/W raid controller solution (lower performance, online recovery is not possible , more manual maintenance etc etc).


Kris