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June 5th, 2013 12:00
Dell Poweredge 1950 server running Windows 2000 Advanced Server lost RAID driver.
Earlier this year with the help of this forum I created an SMTD DVD that was used on the above mentioned server. The server has been up and running until a few days ago as it can no longer find the drive. This server is setup with RAID 1.
My questions;
- Is the RAID driver on the SMTD DVD?
- Could I use the SMTD DVD to re-install them?
- If so, how do I re-install the driver using the SMTD disk?
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theflash1932
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16.3K Posts
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June 5th, 2013 13:00
"Then I tried starting with Windows 2000 Advance Server CD to do a repair (R) and receive “Did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer”. Which makes me think it has to do with the RAID driver."
It does, but the Windows CD does not have the drivers for the PERC ... you need to provide it for Recovery Console (which is an "offline" repair tool) just like you would if installing the OS directly from the OS CD. SMTD will not work for Recovery Console, so you have to take the "long way" around and do it the old-fashioned way. You have two choices:
1. Provide the driver from floppy at the F6 prompt after booting to the Windows CD, or
2. Use nLiteOS.com to integrate the driver into the installation files (which will create a new installation CD).
So, since you don't have a floppy drive, you will need to go to nLiteOS.com and download nLite and follow the examples/prompts to integrate the driver.
http://ftp.dell.com/FOLDER95488M/6/R168600.exe (download and run to extract before using with nLite)
theflash1932
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16.3K Posts
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June 5th, 2013 12:00
1. Yes, but not in a way that can be extracted and used separately. Youl would need to download the driver separately if needed outside of the SMTD OS installation.
2. No. SMTD is only for installing an OS from scratch, overwriting everything currently stored on the disks.
3. As above, it can't be done.
What makes you think it "lost" its RAID driver? Which RAID controller do you have?
DELL-Josh Cr
Moderator
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June 5th, 2013 12:00
Hi Johnny Lee,
The SMTD is for fresh installs it may format all partitions if you use it in a recovery manner. What errors are you getting? Does it show the hard drives online in the RAID controller? Typically if it was booting and stopped it is not a driver issue, but an offline drive(s) or corrupt data.
Johnny Lee
18 Posts
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June 5th, 2013 13:00
First I receive this message when I boot up “At least one service or driver failed during system start up”. Then go to start in Safe Mode and come up to login, sign in and it brings me back to the Ctrl, Alt, Delete login screen, retired using other logins and received same results. Then I tried starting with Windows 2000 Advance Server CD to do a repair (R) and receive “Did not find any hard disk drives installed in your computer”. Which makes me think it has to do with the RAID driver.
Thanks for making me aware not to use the SMTP. There’s no floppy A drive on the server and is the only choice to select to add the RAID driver. I downloaded the driver onto an external hard drive but don’t know how to work around the lack of a floppy to re-install the RAID driver.
Johnny Lee
18 Posts
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June 5th, 2013 13:00
Oh missed this question in your reply, it is a PERC 5/i Adapter
Johnny Lee
18 Posts
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June 5th, 2013 17:00
Followed theflash1932 reply using #2 the “long way” around and it worked out very well.
In using the newly done WinLite CD via nLite's help when the options came up I selected “C” for Recovery Console. Have no idea how long it will take to run the recovery, right now after providing the password it is setting at C:\WINNT>. Any idea on how long it will take?
Thank you for the perfect information on how to resolve this RAID driver problem.
theflash1932
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June 5th, 2013 18:00
When you go into Safe Mode, did you choose Safe Mode with Networking? Were you trying to log in with a domain account or a local account? Choose Safe Mode with Networking if logging in with a domain account. I would, however, log in using the local administrator account rather than your domain account.
How long recovery takes depends on what you do for recovery. A CHKDSK /R takes as little as 30 minutes and as many as a few hours - it will probably be between 30-60 minutes. You might also consider running it 2-3 times. Other common recovery utilities are the FIXMBR and FIXBOOT commands, which take mere seconds, but I'm not sure you need them here. I would run CHKDSK /R twice, then see if you can log in using Safe Mode. There are other things you can do, but I'd start with CHKDSK /R, as it can fix many issues that prevent successful logins/startups.
Johnny Lee
18 Posts
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June 5th, 2013 18:00
No I did not choose Safe Mode with Networking. I logged in as the administrator. Thanks for those timings, other utilities and to run them several times. I will do that.