IDR Does not work Poweredge 2950

[Opie1Knobe]

Sorry it is a little long but for those of you working on this it may help.

I have yet to be able to make IDR work at least the recovery part.  We have Dell poweredge 2950 Servers....NOW before anyone from Symantec Responds and Tells me about the HOTFIX's they have let me tell you i have tried Both Builds of 11d and every hotfix for both versions AND I have called support (case number 290808742) i am still awaiting a callback from that from last monday (a week ago today).

Now on with the facts for all that may be able to help..i have done this process more times than what is listed but this should help you get the idea: I have worked 8-5 on this for about 2 1/2 weeks.

1. Ten servers all identical in the box. (new from dell)

2. Server 2003 sp2 with all current updates (except IE 7)

3. Built in Dat 72 Tape drive Dell perc 5 Intigrated SCSI Controller 

Machine 1.

4. Took new machine out of the box, configured raid  (5 disks- Raid 1  with one Hot Swap) .

6. Built machine with Server 2k3 Using the dell server manager CD and loaded BE 6235

5. Did FULL back up, did IDR

Machine 2. new out of the box

6. Configured raid  and initialize them they are clean (5 disks- Raid 1  with one Hot Swap) .

7. Put in IDR disk and tape machine booted to idr (great we are in business --NOT)

8. Congratulations IDR should work.... IT  DOES NOT BOOT.

Machine 3.

Repeat steps 6 ,7, 8 Same results.  IT DOES NOT BOOT

IT DOES NOT WORK

9. Ok something must be wrong with my IDR disk--- Redo steps 5-8

Still no joy!!! Build another machine

Machine 4

10. Repeat steps 4 - 5

11. back to machine 2 repeat steps 6-8 ( i will leave out the part that i also tried to let IDR Redo my Raid)

CONTINUE PROCESS UNTIL YOU WANT TO PULL OUT YOUR HAIR  then try new build of 11D w HOTFIXES and repeat until this line. 

12.  Call support  HA HA HA !!!! read first paragraph

Machine 5

13. Build a machine from scratch no Dell CD ... w2k3 and BE (new build72..)  do IDR

Machine 2

14. Repeat steps 6 through 8 and guess what IT WORKED  i am the man

Machine 3

15. Repeat steps 6 through 8 and guess what  NO JOY!!!

Machine 4

16. Repeat steps 6 through 8 and guess what  NO JOY!!!

Machine 2

17. Repeat steps 6 through 8 and guess what  NO JOY!!!  (yes i know i had made it work once)

Machine 4

18. Repeat steps 6 through 8 and guess what  IT WORKED  i am the man

So now i can say i have made this process work 2 times but i cannot repeat it and NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

The only thing i can say is the 2 times that it did work the machine was built from scratch without the Dell utility partition.  But i can not use the same IDR 10 times and make it work and, i cant take the one that it did work on and repeat the process.  ANY CLUE!!!

OPIE

[Symantec_Empl1]

Hello Opie,

With regards to the systems that were built from scratch vs. those provided with the utility partition, were you ever able boot into the recovery console?

Part of the answer for this will depend on what could be happening.

One scenario is that the MBR may not have been restored, or that the BOOT.INI file was originally written for  a different partition configuration than that of the server you restored it to.

For example if the original server did not have a utility partition, and the destination server has a utility partion, then the BOOT.INI file would configured to look at the wrong partition for starting Windows.

I looked up your case, and it appears that you've been working with support agents recently.

If you still wish to continue working on this through the forum, then please provide a layout of the partitions on the destination server and the contents of the BOOT.INI file from the source server.