Netserver LP2000R - Automatic NOS install

[Simon Hawkins]

Hi,

I have a new Netserver on which I would like to put Win2k Server on. The machine is filled with 6 36.4 GB hard drives and it's using the HP-Netraid 2M adaptor. I've configured the array with 3 logical drives, one 550MB, one 4GB and the rest is the 3rd.

If i go into the Navigator program, choose Win2k as my NOS and go through the Automatic NOS installation I get an error "Error Occured in BIOS Disk Parameters, Error Code = 0X26". I've checked my BIOS version and it's "4.06.19 RB". If I create one big array with one logical drive I get no error.

Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks.

- Simon

[Theo Hill_1]

How did you create a logical drive of 550MB on a 2m? Unless you used fdisk to create that partition, then this is not an array. If you are installing this to the 550MB partition, there isn't enough space. I would imagine you are using all 6 disks in a RAID 5. More info in this direction, would be helpful.

[Theo Hill_1]

Ok, so I lied. :) Why you would want to do this is beyond me. You are better off creating one array and then partitioning the space. But the same hold true for 550 MB space as being too small to install too.

[Mark Medici]

Theo is correct: 550MB is not enough to perform an automatic NOS install. I believe you need 2GB minimum. Remember, to do an automatic NOS install you need to have enough disk space to hold the final OS install with a default size pagefile, the installed NetServer utilities, and then need enough temp space to copy the Win2k CD and several MB of the NetServer Navigator CD.

Another consideration is that the automatic NOS install requires an UNPARTITIONED disk to work. That means you can define your logical drives and the RAID array controller level, but don't create any partitions on these arrays.

As to creating multiple logical drives versus a single logical drive with multiple partitions, there are advantages to slicing things up at the hardware level:

If NT goes amok and corrupts the partition table on one logical disk, the other disks will probably be ok. However, if you had one logical disk with multiple partitions, all your partitions would probably be screwed.

You can taylor the RAID stripe size per logical disk to better suit the application. For example, your SYSTEM disk should use 16KB stripe size, but your data disk might benefit from 64KB.

Finally, though, I am not a big fan of the Automatic NOS install. In fact, I recommend against using it at all. You are much better off performing a manual install using drivers disks created with the Navigator CD and, then when WinNT/2k is loaded, add the NetRAID Assistant and NetServer Agents manually.