Ok - got this sorted, but only with the help of a Microsoft Support Call (proved well worth the money in the end). Just in case any other poor fool does the same as I, here is the solution.
Todd is right that reverting the disk from Dynamic to basic was the problem. However, this process wipes the partition table, not the data. With the help of a microsoft engineer and a tool called dskprobe (installed from the W2K install disk), I was talked through the manual recreation of the partition table. dskprobe is a direct disk sector editor & you really need to know what your doing - I wouldn't attempt to use it again without help. However, once the partition table was restored, the disk was recognised and worked fine - so I was able to recover all data.
Apparantly, when I originally installed the disk (formally one of a mirror pair no longer in the server) and it wasn't recognised, there should have been a method to 'Import' the disk. Anyway, setting it to basic is WRONG. The microsoft guy was not convinced the Import would alway work (depends on the PC setup) but as the new server build was the same as the old one, it probably would have done.
Live & learn - I hope this may help someone else facing a similar problem.
Todd Smith
35 Posts
0
July 8th, 2004 12:00
JonTheLoft
7 Posts
0
July 9th, 2004 07:00
Todd is right that reverting the disk from Dynamic to basic was the problem. However, this process wipes the partition table, not the data. With the help of a microsoft engineer and a tool called dskprobe (installed from the W2K install disk), I was talked through the manual recreation of the partition table. dskprobe is a direct disk sector editor & you really need to know what your doing - I wouldn't attempt to use it again without help. However, once the partition table was restored, the disk was recognised and worked fine - so I was able to recover all data.
Apparantly, when I originally installed the disk (formally one of a mirror pair no longer in the server) and it wasn't recognised, there should have been a method to 'Import' the disk. Anyway, setting it to basic is WRONG. The microsoft guy was not convinced the Import would alway work (depends on the PC setup) but as the new server build was the same as the old one, it probably would have done.
Live & learn - I hope this may help someone else facing a similar problem.