750 SATA and win2k mirror problem

Did you ever get an answer or figure this out?

The tech support just says that POWEREDGE 700 and 750 does not support Windows 2003 software mirror (!!!!!!!!!!).

Today I called them again, and they sent me a doc with some suggestions regarding this problem, I'll try it tomorrow and let you all know... it doesn't seem to be really a good doc because it says that just disabling the SATA0 disk the system can start from SATA1, which is, instead, EXACTLY the problem I have with that server. I'll confirm it tomorrow.

The customer care will contact me in the next days because I asked my money back OR that DELL sends me the RAID card, because they simply sold me an imcompatible solution WITHOUT clearly saying it BEFORE I buyed it... and it seems the only solution is to buy a HARDWARE RAID CARD!!

P.S.: I also tried booting the server with a boot floppy disk with the right boot.ini obtained after mirroring, but it seems there's no way for this to work.

I'll let you know.

Thanks for the update. I look forward to hearing what you find.





John Moschell, MCSE
glaserworks: Architecture & Urban Design
v. (513) 665-9555
f. (513) 665-9857
304 East 8th Street
Cincinnati, OH 45202
glaserworks.com

I confirm the problem. The fact the server was not able to start was due to the fact that I mirrored just the partitions without first recreating on the second hard drive the exact partition number as the original one: the first hard-drive (SATA0) does contain a 39MB EISA partition, for the DELL power-on utilities to load, with a propetary file-system not know to the operating system.

I had to re-create the same 39MB, not formatted, partition on the second hard disk, and then add mirror to the C: and D: partitions of the SATA 0 disk. So the boot partition number it's the same on both hard disks and the boot.ini will contain exact information.

Anyway the problem is not completly resolved because:

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the POWEREDGE 750 HAS  A LIMITATION: IT CAN'T START FROM SATA DISK 1, BY BIOS.

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So if SATA DISK 0 stops responding for every reason, you need to: OPEN THE SERVER, DISCONNECT THE DRIVE, CONNECT THE SATA1 DISK ON SATA0 motherboard connector then power up the server again. With Windows 2003 you'll need to restart the server choosing the first option of the mirrored-boot-menu because you'll start the S.O. from the same disk as before. Once replacing the drive, you can connect the SATA0 back to SATA1, reattach the replaced drive, then start the server using the second option of the mirrored-boot-menu, because you'll need to start the server from the SATA1 disk. This can be done, but disk SATA0 must be present.

"In a single-drive configuration, SATA PORT 0 must be present", this is the error reported by the BIOS if you try to start it.

So, DELL is selling SATA Servers that can't start, if software mirroring is present (so independenlty on what S.O. it is, not only Windows 2003 Web Edition but also Windows 2000 or even Linux), from the SATA 1 disk, and it's selling this so-configured machine calling it a "server".

This problem should not exists for EIDE or SCSI Servers, at least this is what I suppose.

Good luck,

SpeedyNT.

I found the solution ... after the error:

"Alert! Invalid configuration ! When using a single hard disk drive, SATA Port 0 must be used"

If you wait for a while, it appears an outstanding message:

"Press F1 to Continue, Press F2 to enter SETUP".

If you press F1 the server starts from SATA Port 1 Hard DISK, EVEN WITHOUT THE SATA PORT 0 HARD DISK

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Question closed. AMEN.

P.S. Anyway, a human-action it's required, as if the SATA 0 disk breakes, someone needs to go to the server and press the F1 key !!!

Would the F1 be bypassed by selecting "Do not report [keyboard] errors" in the BIOS setup?