super long boot times (20+mins)

[eric©]

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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