Strange issue after dissimilar BMR

[Rajesh_s1]

HI All,

Environment : windows 2008-R2

Today we sawn a strange issue after the BMR recovery to one of the machine ( Dissimilar hardware). During recovery all the files has been restored successfuly but at the time of first reboot it comes upto booting point and displays that " booting from C:\ drive" below this line with a letter "J" .  It will stop at this point and won't boot. If anybody come accross this issue please let me know.

Regards,

rajesh

[mandar_khanolka]

Did you try booting into windows safe mode?

I do not remember seing this exact issue in past. There was a black screen upon first boot issue for which we had published engineering binary.

If boot into safe mode does not work then please go ahead and open service request with symantec on this problem.

Thanks.

mkhanolk

[Suchitra]

Strange. But this doesn't look to be related to restore as one of us here has seen this happening even after OS installation.

Did we try BIOS updates here ?

-Suchitra

[Rajesh_s1]

Hello Suchitra,

I have upgraded to latest BIOS , but even after didn't worked out . I have noticed the same issue on BL460-G7 but at that time i thought BIOS upgrade will resolve our issue and left that but now on the another model facing same issue.

Ya that's what i am also not getting,  restore is completed sucessfully with out any issue. 

Mandar i already raised open a case on this.

Regards,

Rajesh

[Rajesh_s1]

Hi Mandar,

I am unable to boot from the safe mode , as its not moving beyond the below screen.

[mandar_khanolka]

Hi Rajesh

Which NB version you are using?

Thanks.

-Mandar

[Rajesh_s1]

Its NBU 7.1.0.1

[Rajesh_s1]

Hi Suchitra , Mandar,

Just done some POC's on this , instead of restoring dissimilar h/w restore . I have installed a new OS and applied all the required patches on this server and then took backup. After that i restored the same backup on this server and its started booting with out any issue . 

Still i am unable to findout what was the issue and why it was unable to boot, same backup i restored on other models and it was working fine.

Regards,

Rajesh

[mandar_khanolka]

Couple of things to confirm:

1. Do you have multiple disks on this machine where the boot error is coming during DSR?

2. Do you have system and boot volumes different?

Thanks.

-Mandar

[Rajesh_s1]

Hi Mandar,

No, it contain two physical disk where i made it as a Raid 1 configuration and in the destination also same thing.

and logically i hve allocated 2 disk one for C:\ and other disk for storging data.

Regards,

rajesh

[Rajesh_s1]

 Hello Mandar,

  As per my earlier message , I have installed windows 2008-R2 freshly on DL785-G5 and taken BMR backup. After that I restored the same backup on the same server i.e. DL785-G5 and the restore went fine an server is booting fine.

 Today the backup of DL785-G5 I am restoring on DL785-G6 , now also I am experiencing the same issue,  its not booting & its strucking at the same place with caracter "J" .

 Below are the screenshots of the Raid configuration on both the servers.

[Mark_Solutions]

The "J" error usually refers to a bios issue with the boot device - people get it when trying to boot from USB Sticks etc.

I can see both have a Smart Array P400 but in the BMR Client Configuration do you see any differences between the drives on the two servers?

Did you add any extra packages before preparing to restore and also did you make the boot CD after this process?

[Rajesh_s1]

HI , attching the driver screenshot

DL785-G5

  

 DL785-G6

[Mark_Solutions]

The Smart Array controller appears to be different (P400 and P410i) so you need to make sure it is available and bootable.

The Virtual Bus and Emulex drivers also look different so you may need to add these packages to the custom configuration.

Also odd that the IDE controllers show no match.

Best to make sure everything available is loaded into the custom configuration and then prepare to restore it against the custom configuration and make the ISO for that client and try again

[Suchitra · Accepted solution]

I think Mark is right.

From the screenshots..

The Smart Array P400 Controller package from G5 --is of 2/22/2010 --6.20.0.64 and from the DSR config screenshot I see Smart Array P410i Controller driver package whose version is 6.20.2.64.

Now we are restoring the backup image of DL785-G5 to DL785-G6, so most probably the newer package from G6 is causing the problem as 6.20.2.64 as it may not be compatible with the G5's backup image contents.

Can you try this once as a test ?

Steps:

1) Please use the version 2/22/2010 -6.20.0.64 in the Configuration. And remove the newer one.You will have to do it from Edit Configuration --Device & Drivers view. Goto Add/ Remove drivers.

2) Remove the newer driver and add the version 6.20.0.64 specifically.

3) Now from the pane: Driver packages to be used for restore, select this newly added package( 6.20.0.64) and click on Change and select the check box --Force installation of this driver instead of Windows supplied or newer drivers.

4) Now try a Prepare to restore on this configuration and attempt to restore.

I hope this helps!

Thanks

[Rajesh_s1]

Thanks all , let me try this option Tomorrow ..

Regards,

Rajesh

[Mark_Solutions]

Rajesh

Just one other thing before you kick this off ....

Make sure you have also added the network drivers (virtual bus driver is one of those) and in your edited configuration make sure you edit the MAC address to be that of the target server, not it original one.

[Rajesh_s1]

Hi All,

Thanks for your support, finally its got resolved and i am able to restore .

Suchitra you are right after changing the Array controller driver its worked , so earlier for " Smart arry P400 controller" it was taken driver of " smart array controller P410i" due to which it was not booting .  Thanks a lot for guiding me in right direction .

But one thing i am unable to understand why it has taken P410i driver if it required P400 controller driver ?  It will be very difficult to understand the driver part in BMR.  How can we identify which driver is required and which one it supports .......

Below is the driver configuration which works ...

[Mark_Solutions]

Hi

Glad this has worked for you now.

What you show above does look a little confusing but effectively you should need the driver that suits the hardware that you are rstoring to.

So if the G5 uses the P400 and the G6 uses the P410i then to restore any image to a G5 you should need to use the P400 driver and to restore any image to a G6 you should need to use the P410i driver.

You should only have one available in case it loads the wrong one during the process

Hope this helps further - glad we sorted it for you

[Suchitra]

Agree with Mark here.

However in this case although you are restoring on TARGET client ( G6) and the driver P410i was rightly used being the latest available one, looks like the driver was not working well with the OS image of G5. Hence it was not able to read the disk (boot partition)

Had you be doing a G6 to G6 restore then it would have worked well. The same P410i driver would have worked. These are rare cases but in case of HP we can't say :(

Thanks

Suchitra