Windows Server 2003 won't finish starting up

[TheBDB]

We had a power failure and I believe we may have lost 1 of the 3 disks in our RAID 5 array. During bootup it says that the RAID is degraded and it is rebuilding. Windows seems to startup normally but it never gets to the screen where you can login. I've waited up to about 30 minutes. Is is possible it is trying to rebuild the RAID array? I don't think the OS is even on the RAID array, so why should that affect startup?

 

[RebateMonger]

You didn't say how large the array is. It could take a LOT longer than 30 minutes to rebuild a large RAID 5 array. I don't know if Windows would pause startup if a non-System array was rebuilding. I wouldn't think so. It's just a degraded array. I've had clients run Windows for months even though their system disk was a degraded array.

Rebuilding would probably go faster in offline (from the RAID BIOS) mode.

Knowing whether your OS is part of the RAID 5 array would be nice. Presumably, if it's not, you could disconnect the RAID 5 array and let Windows boot without it. It'd sit for a while, finally give up trying, and would boot without the array attached.

 

[spikespiegal]

Some RAID drivers have Windows link-in utilities that restrict the OS from proceeding in the event the RAID is degraded enough to potentially cause data loss. When Windows eventually logs in, you can probably dig around and disable the setting (I love irony). If it were me I'd let it rebuild in offline mode for awhile first.

I've seen *all* RAID configs have more issues like this during a hard power cycle over non-RAID configs. Just another reason to have a good UPS because they are mandatory in this scenario. I'm also a chief proponent of banning RAID 5 from this end of the universe because I've seen more data lost with RAID 5 on all different types of server platforms than drive failures.

 

[RebateMonger]

I'm also a chief proponent of banning RAID 5 from this end of the universe because I've seen more data lost with RAID 5 on all different types of server platforms than drive failures.

Gee. And it sounded so nice in the travel brochure.