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March 5th, 2021 15:00
Windows Server 2012 R2 Std. Will Not Boot; Not Recognizing Drives
Hi:
A company called me for help as their server showing no drives detected and will not boot. PowerEdge T320 with PERC H310 RAID controller. Two 1 TB SAS drives supposedly in RAID 1 cfg. However, RAID controller cfg. not showing any Virtual Disks, detecting only the two physical discs. Tried to create a new Virtual Disk RAID 1 w/using both physical disks, WITHOUT initializing so as to avoid data loss, but still will not boot. Accessed RAID controller cfg. again and Virtual Disk gone and controller detecting only 1 of the physical disks.. I think RAID controller has failed.
They have a backup to an externally attached USB drive using Windows Server Backup. Server is a Domain Controller.
I should be able to use new disk, install Windows Server 2012 R2 Std., and recover from backup using Windows Server Backup program, correct? Any gotchas?
Thanks so much for any input!
Bob H.
bob.herman
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March 10th, 2021 16:00
Connected new SSD disk direct to SATA port on motherboard and restored from backup target using bare metal restore.
DELL-Joey C
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March 7th, 2021 21:00
Hi,
Thanks for letting us know the troubleshooting steps that you have done. Before you reinstall the OS, have you tried installing 2 new drives in the server, to check if the RAID controller is faulty? The contact point of the drives might be faulty or loose, have you tried removing and install to check the issue? Have you tried checking the RAID controller cables to the backplane if it's secured?
Unfortunately, we're not well trained with Microsoft Windows back up utilities, so I'm not able to provide a proper advice or steps.
bob.herman
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March 10th, 2021 17:00
Did not. Takes many many hours to run h/w diags. and priority was to get server running again. Server is 8 years old and needs to be replaced so that's next step.
DELL-Joey C
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March 10th, 2021 17:00
Hi,
Great to hear that server has been restored. Did you manage to find out if it's just the drives are faulty?