Utility Partition and software mirroring?

Question

How do you configure software mirroring to work on a system drive where a Dell utility partition exists?  I have seen references to making a boot disk with modified boot.ini file but no specific 'how-to'.   I have found my software mirrored system does not failover correctly to the 2nd drive by performing the following:    Using Dell PowerEdge with a Utility partition and a standary system partition (C:\).  I mirrored the (C:\) drive (not utility partition) with an additional drive of exact physical specifications.  If I 'Fail' the original 'pimary' disk, and reboot the system, it will not boot into windows.

pcmeiners · Answer

If two cables(duplexed), reverse the scsi cable connector at the motherboard or at the disks, if single cable, reverse drive connectors, if SCA disks , reverse the "good" disk to the slot of the dead disk. The boot.ini is pointing to the first drive (dead drive), that is why you get the warning, but get no further, jamming at the boot.ini file's incorrect drive reference.

In future create a boot floppy to start the second disk,

"In SCSI systems, the remaining disk must be the first disk specified by the SCSI controller"

read link carefully

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsServer/en/library/4b8002b4-d096-4045-8ffe-c152a4bfc3571033.mspx?mfr=true

Message Edited by pcmeiners on 04-11-2007 04:55 PM

DELL-GaryS · Answer

Hi,     If you'll break the mirror and delete the mirror partition then use Fdisk or some other utility to create a same size partition as the utility partition, then remirror, you'll now have the same partition number on the mirror. (do not format the fake utility partition, you don't want to put files there, it's just a place holder) Another option is to create a 'fault tolerant boot floppy' per the microsoft article, and leave the FTboot floppy in the system.   Regards, Dell-GaryS

PowerEdge HDD/SCSI/RAID

Utility Partition and software mirroring?

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