Loss of Assigned Drives

[DTracy]

One of our local alternative school buildings has a small Brand-X file server with 14 workstations. The server has a 500 MB SCSI hard disk (C) and SCSI CDROM (F), as well as a 4GB IDE hard disk (D) and a 3.5 inch floppy drive (A). It has roughly 200 MB of memory, a 266 MHz processor, a DAT tape drive, and parallel and serial ports in use, standard video and mouse. The operating system is Windows NT 4.0 SP6.

The server loses its drive assignments when it is turned off. When restarted, the disk administrator must be used to reassign the letters to the IDE hard disk (D) drive and the SCSI CDROM (F). The SCSI hard disk retains its letter assignment of (C) as does the floppy drive (A). There are no errors in the event log or on start up.

I have changed the CMOS battery and triple checked all the configuration settings. The SCSI drivers load OK as does the IDE driver. No errors, no warnings.

I don't know how long this has been a problem. The school was closed for the summer during which time the server was turned off. When the system was started up last month was when I found the problem. I couldn't solve it then, but I thought the UPS would keep it up and running. However, the fall monsoons at night/weekend have brought power outages long enough to run the battery down on the UPS thus killing the server. I would really appreciate any ideas on a solution, tossing it out into the street has already been considered.

Thanks ever-so-much,

Best Regards,

Best Regards,
David Tracy
dba: Tall Clipper Ships
Clifton, Arizona 85533
tracys@vtc.net

 

[SgtB]

Here's an idea (shot in the dark really). Boot the server, and map all the drives correctly. Once done, resinstall SP6a. Upon reboot, cross your fingers.

Sorry, but this is the best I could come up with, and I really have no idea about why this problem is occuring.

Good luck!

 

[DTracy]

[ To SgtB ]

Thanks for the suggestion. I had tried that already, no change. Sorry for not including that in my initial post, I was getting tired, frustrated, etc.

Best regards,
Best Regards,
David Tracy
dba: Tall Clipper Ships
Clifton, Arizona 85533
tracys@vtc.net

 

[SgtB]

Here's another idea...

I spoke with one of my co-workers about this, and she had a good theory. Here it goes...

The first devices to boot are the SCSI devices, then the IDE drive. The CDROM will be recognized before the IDE drive. NT might then decide that the CD would have the next drive letter (in this case D). Since the IDE already has that mapping, NT might just drop both of them out of confusion.

So here's the idea. Try mapping the CDROM to D, and the IDE drive to F. Reboot, and see if the drive mappings stick. If this is the case then, the theory is sound. If not...I'm not too sure what the problem is.

This is all theory as the OS shouldn't really care in which order the devices are recognized, but then again...NT isn't perfect!

Let me know how it goes!

 

[DTracy]

[ To SgtB ]

Thanks for the idea, I had already tried that as well, it didn't work either. Sorry, I'm not trying to be difficult, its just that this server is making me crazy! I tried everything I could think of, took it up to the local computer repair store and paid the techs out of my own pocket to find the problem, which they couldn't, reinstalled the server and put extra-good batteries in the UPS and began the forum conversations. See what I mean, making me crazy...

Thanks anyway for listening.


Best Regards,
David Tracy
dba: Tall Clipper Ships
Clifton, Arizona 85533
tracys@vtc.net

 

[SteelBurner]

Hi DTracy,

I've experienced similar problems a few years ago with one of our customers server.
This article at Microsoft's knowledge base might help you out:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q158362

SteelBurner

 

[Mturner]

considering sgtb's friends thery in the bios there shouls be boot order, and i have our servers configured as scsi,c,d
a bit of a long shot but this should first try booting from scsi then drive c (scsi again!) then d which it should put as another hdd...hopefully.

HTH

Marc Turner Marc Turner
Network Manager

E-Mail: Mturner@turnerm3.fsnet.co.uk

 

[DTracy]

[To SteelBurner, et al]

I finally had a chance to try your solution on the Alternative School's file server yesterday. The SCSI was already set to system. As I recall, it boots from the device called drive.

According to the service article, it should be losing the SCSI disk drive identifier. However, this server is losing the SCSI CDROM identifier, and the IDE disk drive identifier. The server is booting from the SCSI hard disk drive.

Thanks again for all your help,
Best Regards,
David Tracy
dba: Tall Clipper Ships
Clifton, Arizona 85533
tracys@vtc.net