NT Server Drive Upgrade results in the blue screen of death!!! 2

[Scott15239]

Any suggestions that anyone has will be greatly appreciated! I have an NT4 server (SP6) that currently has two drives, a 20 gig Western Dig. (boot drive) and an 8 gig seagate. I use Norton Ghost to clone the primary drive to the secondary drive (although it's larger, there's less than 8 gig of space being used on the 20 gig drive). My boss and I decided to upgrade the hard drives, and purchased a pair of Maxtor ATA 133 60 gig drives and an Ultra ATA 100 PCI card from a 'computer superstore', who also offered free installation. They installed the card and loaded the drivers onto the existing boot partition residing on the 20 gig drive. If the existing drives are left cabled to the onboard ATA slot, the machine endlessly reboots itself. If the drives are now cabled to the card, I'll get the blue screen of death say I have an inaccessable boot device. I've been discussing this problem with several of my peers and they feel the problem revolves around the fact (I don't know it's a fact but they feel it is so) that during installation NT records device information so that switching to the new drive is impossible without doing a fresh install of NT, which I am very loath to do. I should also mention that if I cable the existing 8 gig (backup) drive as the primary master on the onboard ATA, the system DOES come up, but now I'm in an even more difficult situation - instead of moving up from a 20 gig drive to a 60 gig, I've moved down to an 8 gig drive!! Anyone have any advice or ideas???????

 

[jaeddy]

It sounds to me like one of two things has happened here- the wrong drivers were installed for the new controller card, or, and far more likely, you have the wrong arc names for the drives in the boot.ini.

I'm pulling this off the top of my head so bear with me if I get any particular wrong- arc names describe the location of a given partition by physical controller/physical drive/partition.

When you added the new controller, my suspicion is that you did not disable the existing controller- so NT sees the original primary channel as controller 0, the original secondary as controller 1, and the new controller as controller 2. In boot.ini your system is pointing at say 0,0,1 but the system files are actually on 2,0,1 so the boot device is inaccessible.

When you try to go back to the old controller, you have the wrong drivers, and good night nurse.

What to do? First, try disabling the original IDE controllers in the BIOS and connect the drives to the new controller and see what happens. If that works, then the rest is essentially up to you- if you have no need for the original controllers, go on with your business.

If that doesn't work, try the next step which would be to boot off the 8GB drive on the existing IDE controller, and add a line to boot.ini that will point to the controller/drive/partition on the new controller and see if you can boot it like that. If that works you can rest assured that your NT installation on the 20GB drive has not been corrupted. The added line to boot.ini would be something such as:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00 [VGA mode]" /basevideo /sos
multi(2)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows NT Workstation Version 4.00"

The line beginning with multi(2) would be the new line (and obviously I copied this out of my NT workstation so it would reference Server rather than workstation). Another caveat: I am assuming that your server is a standard configuration with a primary and secondary integrated IDE and that you installed your OS on the first partition of the first physical drive on the first controller. Check your own boot.ini on the 8GB drive to see where it's pointing. Your milage may vary

Finally, keep your installation media handy... you may yet wind up doing the unthinkable- however, having ghosted from the 20GB to the 8GB, you could probably ghost from the 8GB back to the 20GB, at least to get back to your initial state of affairs.

Post a follow-up. Love to see where this all leads.

John

 

[ChrisHirst]

I have had a similar problem, The basic fact seems to be that NT4 and some ATA 100 drives\controllers do not work the hardware is just too new seemingly.
My problem was that the machine would start up and run at first but as soon as data started transfering from the ATA 100 drives (the system drive was 10g ULTRA DMA 33) the machine would lock up. Attach lower spec drives (ULTRA DMA 33) and everything would run perfectly well. The install was clean, onto brand new hardware and using the onboard IDE channels.
Solution was to install Win 2k Svr.

Chris.

 

[jaeddy]

I've never run in to that before, but I'd suspect it wasn't so much a matter of NT not supporting faster drives/controllers as much as poorly-written drivers for the controllers making the system flaky. Of course, this could easily be the crux of the problem for Scott.

 

[Scott15239]

John,
Thank you for your helpful suggestion. I'll be attempting to make these changes this evening, and will let you know the results. I had a lengthy discussion regarding this subject with a tech at Maxtor yesterday and we didn't even broach any of these possible solutions. In addition to the Maxtor 100 card, I also have a SIIG 133 ATA card that I have yet to try. One other thing that MIGHT help me in conjunction with your proposed changes is the fact that in my MANY permutations of trying different things, I managed to get the machine to come up on the 8 gig drive, and also recognize (and using NT's Disk Administrator) and format one of the 60 gig drives. Once I got that done, I updated my Ghost boot disk, and was able to clone the 8 gig drive to the 60 GIG drive - of course no matter how I configured the new drive, using onboard ATA or the ATA card, I would get the evil 'inaccessable boot device'. I'm still pondering all these implications........

 

[Scott15239]

Just a quick update on where things stand. Took John's documentation with me to the site, and also had a standing appointment to work with a Maxtor tech (it IS their hardware and software that I'm having a problem with, after all). They suggested pulling out the installation CD and trying a repair. I was skeptical, but went with it. Unfortunately it dropped me back from SP6A back to SP1, and although the machine would now boot, I could not get logged in using any known combination of uids/passwords. NOT GOOD! Rather continuing to flog a dead horse, I did just ghost the 8 gig back to the 20 gig. Recabled everything back to it's original position, and the machine is now back up. So now I'm back to square one. I still would like to attempt to upgrade to the 60 gig drives, but am entirely unsure what direction I should proceed. Thank GOD for Ghost!! As a side question, anyone know how to schedule an unattended clone using Ghost, or if such a procedure is possible?

 

[C5Thunder]

Well now that you're back to square one, Here is what you can do:

-Connect the new drives and ATA 100 Cards
-Install drivers/software. Make sure you can see the drives in windows.
-Format the 60gb drive just to make sure you can access it.
-Ghost the 20gb drive to the 60gb drive. DO NOT disconnect the 20gb drive yet.
-Once the ghost is complete. Reboot and start Windows on the 20gb drive.
-Verify that there is data on the 60gb drive.
-disconnect the 20gb and reboot.
-If it works, great. If not, then reconnect the 20gb and start experimenting with the boot.ini file on the 60gb until you get something. Follow Johns example, and modify to suite your setup.

 

[jaeddy]

C5Thunder has it right.

Once you can verify the 60GB drives are functioning on the new controller it is time to see if all you need is a boot.ini tweak to make it work. I would go so far as to download whatever newest drivers are available for the controller, install those and go from there.

 

[Scott15239]

That's IT! SUCCESS!
Just to recap the steps I took to successfully do this upgrade, here they are:

1. Ghost my 8 gig backup drive back to my 20 gig primary (Wednesday).
2. Cable originial drives in original location to onboard ATA.
3. Ghost my 20 gig drive back to 8 gig drive (Sunday, to avoid losing more data).
3. Install card only.
4. Install drivers.
5. Reboot machine - machine came up fine.
6. Shut machine down, installed two new 60 gig drives to card.
7. Reboot machine - machine came up fine (still on 20 gig primary).
8. Ran Disk Administrator to format both 60 gig drives with NTFS.
9. Updated my Ghost disk just to be sure it wasn't trying recognize any previous hardware setups.
10. Reboot machine off Ghost disk - cloned 20 gig drive to one 60 gig drive.
11. Rebooted machine off 20 gig drive again and checked to see if 60 gig drives were recognized (they were), and if data was cloned from 20 gig drive to 60 gig drive (it was).
12. Uncabled 20 and 8 gig drives (Primary master and Primary Slave).
13. Rebooted machine - came up fine off of 60 gig drive. Primary drive is now 60 gig drive and secondary drive is second 60 gig drive installed.
14. Removed 20 and 8 gig drives.

Machine is now fine, and all is right with the world!!!!

John, I ended up not having to edit the boot.ini file, but the information you gave me is still good to know. I've never had to go into the boot.ini file before, and now I know how to make changes there.

Both John and C5Thunder, I very much thank you for your help! That's the VERY LAST TIME I'll EVER let a "computer superstore ((you know, that store whose's last three letters stand for "U're Sorry Always"!!!!!!)).

Thanks guys!