HomePERC and Dynamic Disk Hell
The goal at my customer’s site last night was simple:
- Ghost the Dell PowerEdge 2950 Windows Server 2003 C: and D: drives
- Pull out the 3 old 36GB drive RAID 5 Array and replace with 5 shiny new 146GB drives in a RAID 5 Array
- Put the ghost image back on the new RAID 5 array
- Go home and have a good night’s rest
My night can be summed up in two simple words: MISERABLE FAILURE
Almost two hours into the project I finally realized that the PERC3/Di drivers are actually inserted into the PERC2/3 bundle of PERC drivers rather than the PERC 3/4 bundle of drivers. There are PERC Di’s,, Si’s, DC’s, SC’s, and QC’s. The Di and Si versions apparently are the bastard child of the PERC drivers.
Once I was able to boot into Bart PE Ghost kept crashing with Error 32000. Symantec basically says this could mean anything, or nothing. Thanks Symantec.
I was finally able to take an image of the machine, however it was useless. It turns out the previous IT guy decided it would be a great idea to turn the RAID 5 Array into a dynamic partition. Ghost, and from what I’ve read cannot clone RAID 5 volumes – only spanned, striped or mirrored volumes.
What upsets me more than the fact that this just a stupid decision by the last IT guy, and more the fact that several hours were wasted by me trying to get it to work is the fact that the last guy must have made a concerted, conscious effor to make this change in Windows. This was not a case of simply choosing the wrong choice – Door A or B. A colleague of mine reminded me this morning as I was venting that Microsoft suggest making all volumes Dynamic (or at least they did a while back).
I take full blame for not preparing for the w0rk I was embarking upon last night. It just goes to show that you really can’t trust the work of others. Nothing is safe.
