super long boot times (20+mins)

[eric©]

Ok, now I feel like a complete tool...I got home, pulled up the Event
Viewer, and what do I find?  20 mins worth of errors relating to the driver
for one of the SCSI controllers.  It was actually quite humourous when I saw
a bunch of red X's, then looking at time stamps.  An error was logged every
minute for 23 mins.  Doh!

Eric

On 12/31/06, eric(c) <ericlists at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I apologize to everyone for giving such limited info, I really should know
> better as I work as a computer tech afterall.  I was just so tired by the
> time I wrote that, nothing in my brain was working correctly :-P
>
> Anyways, as far as the hardware goes, I'm fairly certain that the RAID
> controller is onboard, altho this is my first foray into "real" servers, as
> opposed to running server OS'es on a desktop.  The guy I got the machine
> from said that there is 3 RAID controllers in the machine - one for the
> CDROM drive, one for the 6 internal hot swap hard drives, and one for an
> external RAID array that utilizes an expansion card with a wonderful rat's
> nest of cabling </sarcasm>.  When I get home tonight, I plan on stripping
> this thing down to the bare case to find out exactly what's installed and
> where, as well as to get a better idea of how everything is set up.
>
> I know there are two PCI dual port network cards installed, one port I
> currently have set up as a static IP address (as are all the computers on my
> network).  The other 3 I left at DHCP, altho I'll be disabling the other 3
> tonight as I'm not currently using them.  I believe there is also a fibre
> channel dual port card installed, altho i'm not positive that's what I'm
> looking at (6 pin connector, slightly wider than an RJ45 jack).  I popped in
> the card for the external RAID, but not currently utilizing it (figured it
> was better than letting it sit on the desk, don't have an antistatic bag big
> enough for it).
>
> Windows in installed in the default directory, on the IDE drive.  There is
> currently nothing on the internal RAID, other than having the partition
> written.  Haven't even formatted it yet.  It is a clean install, done myself
> last night.  The reason I don't have Linux on it right now, other than not
> having a CD-ROM to install it from, is that I'm not yet familiar enough with
> it.  I do have Debian on the other server, and I'm often finding it taking
> hours to figure out how to do basic stuff.  I wanted to be able to start
> utilizing this one right away.  It doesn't seem to be an issue with the IDE
> hard drive, as anything to do with file copies does go quickly.
>
> Eric
>
>
>
>
>
> On 12/31/06, Joseph Sinclair <plug-discussion at stcaz.net > wrote:
> >
> > Have you tried booting up with no network plugged in and no USB devices
> > plugged in? Windows often times out waiting for a slightly non-standard
> > response from USB devices (5 minutes per device) during the boot
> > sequence.  It might also be searching for a network resource (PXE boot, AD
> > controller, etc...) leftover from somewhere.
> > Have you examined the "System" and "Application" logs in Event
> > Viewer?  The startup messages there should help narrow down where the delay
> > is occurring.
> > Is the RAID config via a hardware RAID controller, or via the
> > motherboard?  Windows server doesn't play very well with the half-software
> > RAID that's shipped on motherboards.
> > Have you made sure Windows has the drives set up correctly ("C:\Windows"
> > on the IDE drive, "C:\Progra~1" and "C:\Program Files", which should be the
> > same folder, on the IDE drive, the IDE drive as drive "C", and the IDE drive
> > is not dynamic)?  Server 2003 often makes poor use of systems with both RAID
> > and non-RAID drives, "required" "O/S components" are stored in Program
> > Files, and sometimes accessed via "C:\Progra~1", and Windows still REALLY
> > expects to be installed on drive "C".
> >
> > eric(c) wrote:
> >
> > > I just picked up a quad Xeon server today.  Verified working operation
> > > before I took it home.  It was running Windows Server 2003, and booted
> > up
> > > quite quickly.  The guy cleared the SCSI RAID configs, and handed it
> > over.
> > > I brought it home, and found the CD-ROM drive didn't want to release
> > the
> > > tray.  Didn't have any floppies on hand, so I just tossed my boot hard
> > > drive
> > > in the machine and installed a copy of Windows Server 2003 to the IDE
> > drive
> > > (yes, I know this is a Linux list).  Would have preferred Debian on
> > there,
> > > but without a working CDROM, and no floppies......(I'm planning on
> > stopping
> > > by Fry's this weekend to pick up a new CD-ROM drive for it)
> > >
> > > Anyways, the only thing I changed on the machine after getting it was
> > > setting up the 6 SCSI drives as one big stripe, and made the IDE drive
> > the
> > > primary boot drive.  Took over 3 hours to install Windows, and takes
> > well
> > > over 20 mins just to boot now.  Doesn't appear to be an issue with the
> > IDE
> > > drive, as the majority of the time, there is no disc access.  Once I
> > log
> > > in,
> > > everything is quite snappy.  I also noticed that the file copies in
> > setup
> > > went by really quick.
> > >
> > > Any ideas?
> > >
> > > eric
> > >
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