Creating a Whole Drive Mirror

[IdahoTech]

Hello All,

I have rebuilt two of my schools servers this past week and am about done so now I want to mirror the whole drive to another drive as a backup in case the other fails. I have the documentation from novell on this, BUT when it states to make a new netware partition on the drive it does not state how to do this.

Do I use the Netware 6 CD and install from scratch with only the new blank drive in as master and only go as far as to make it create and format the newly created boot partition. Or do i do it another way??

I know this seems kind of basic and it may be and I am just thinking way to much into it. If someone has a step by step on how to do this it would be great. I think my brain is fried trying to get the server as it was before I rebuilt it with all the programs the teachers and staff need.

In case you are wondering I have Netware 6 w/SP4E installed on each server and also have Zenworks for Desktops(4.0.1) installed with the latest service pack also. I have the latest java installed as well (1.4.3_02)

These are (2) 80 gig drives. One has the system on it the other is blank and I just want to make a clone or mirror we shall say of the whole first disk so if the first one goes down the second one will take its place, or if it does go down I can make it the primary drive and then get a new drive and make that one the mirror.

Sorry if it is a long list of nothing with the meaning hidden in my plea for some help, but it gets lonley here in this room working on servers day in and day out.

Thanks to anyone who can help. School is a long way off, but would like to have piece of mind knowing that we now have some kind of backup in case things go kablooie!!!



IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein

http://www.sd60.k12.id.us

 

[Lou0686]

This is how I would handle it.

1. Put only the blank drive in the server and create an equal size DOS partion as on the first drive.

2. Format and make it active.

3. Place the first drive in and Xcopy everything but the DOS boot files.

4. Bring the server up and establish a mirror.

Done

Lou

 

[IdahoTech]

Thanks for the info Lou, I will give it a try and let you know how it goes. So if my main server drive goes down the oter will take over, correct?



IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein

http://www.sd60.k12.id.us

 

[IdahoTech]

Xcopy? Would that be on the DOS partition? Also could I use any other program to copy the information over? How do I access Xcopy?

Thanks

IdahoTech
'Only two things are infinite - the Universe and human Stupidity, and I'm not so sure about the Universe' Albert Einstein

http://www.sd60.k12.id.us

 

[Lou0686]

Hi Idaho,

Yes, the instructions will duplicate your drive.

When formatting make sure the partion is active.

The purpose of the Xcopy is to duplicate the DOS partition. If you were to use the NW CD, you would literally be building another server and you would have to patch to the current level. Xcopy will allow you to do the same in less steps.

Xcopy should be on the DOS partition.

Lou