Windows 2000 Server cannot boot up !

Question

I have a PowerEdge 1600SC which is installed a Windows 2000 server. The server has two SCSI hard disks installed for disk mirroring. Disk 1 is installed the DELL utility partition too. Disk 2 is no DELL utility partition.

Recently, there is a hard disk failure in Disk 1. I try to boot up the server by Disk 2. However the server is pending on the BIOS screen and cannot be boot up.

Now, I just can boot up the server by a floopy disk.

How can I fix to boot up by the hard disk ?

Dev Mgr · Answer

How are you mirroring if the Dell utility partition isn't part of the mirror?

Are you using a dynamic disk mirror?

If you're only mirroring the partition, your boot.ini (root directory of C:), will look something like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

(this is a copy and paste from my XP desktop with the XP part replaced with 2000 and the partition number replaced with a 2, but it'll be similar)

You need to either add a partition in front of your existing partition so that your mirror becomes the 2nd partition (the "partition(2)" part in the boot.ini), or you need to modify/fix your boot.ini to add a line along the lines of:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 mirror" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

One option is to boot to a Windows 2000 CD, select recovery, and then the recovery console. In here try a "fixboot" to see if that helps. Maybe try a fixmbr too. Some info on the recovery console can be found here.

PowerEdge OS Forum

Windows 2000 Server cannot boot up !

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