Missing Operating System

[Ayman Altounji]

I am building three (3) DL360, dual 1 GHz processor, 1Gig of Memory, two (2) 36 gig hard drives mirrored. I installed the OS using the Compaq Smart Start 5, running Windows NT 4.0, then Service Pak 6a.

After I install software that requires a reboot, instead of launching Windows NT 4.0, I get the following error? ?Missing Operating System?. This is the forth, or fifth time this has happened on two of these three servers. (I really have not done much on the third server yet)

The latest occurrence was after installing MSSQL7. Other times my manager pointed out things that he said he would not have done. Example: Run Partition Magic to expand the C: drive from 4 gig to 7 gig. (although it did not happen after the Partition Magic step). Installed IE 5.5 from our network, instead of from Microsoft. These are the two I can remember. But I routinely perform these tasks on every NT 4.0 file server I build, and never have a problem. (this is not rocket science!)

What is causing this problem? Is there some inherent problem with the integrated drive array (42xx/43x), or the 36 gig drives?

Thanks in advance, Rick

[Ayman Altounji]

Thanks for the help, but the "Missing Operating System" error was "self inflicted". Sorry for the trouble.

Rick

[Ayman Altounji]

I am having the same problem although this is not self inflicted! I have a DL360 with mirrored 9 GB drives, I get through Smart Start, load the NT 4 OS, patch it with 6a and reboot. At that point the server posts, and then gives me "Missing Operating System" I've made a boot floppy that helps it boot. Once booted, the machie is FINE. I've used the eraser utility and reproduced this problem more than once. Are there any known issues with SP6a maybe? Where my problem differs is I have run a completely vanilla install. No applications loaded even. ???? Thanks! Alan

[Ayman Altounji]

I've seen cases where after installing NT on a dl360 with the compaq partition on it, the NT boot.ini file will be set to partition (1), when it should be (2) because the compaq partition is 1. Tthe system will boot fine and run until I open disk admin, and then it 'realizes' that NT is actually on partition (2). If I shut the system down at that point, it will no longer boot from hard drive, and must be booted from floppy with part (2) in the boot.ini. I can then modify the boot.ini on the hard drive and all is well.