A strange thing has been happening to me over the last couple of days. I was reformatting my Dell Poweredge SC420 from a being a workstation back to being a server. Wiping out Windows XP and installing Windows Server 2008. I wanted to have a reliable file and print server - yes, I know a 3.4ghz P4 enterprise edition is overkill ... but my only PC with enough hard drive slots and space for cooling.
Well, Windows Server 2008 is useless to me since there are no drivers yet for the SC420. That was a pointless install.
Then came Windows Server 2003. It was my basic server setup - 2 identical drives to be configured with Windows and then setup as a RAID mirror set. Windows software RAID. All was dandy and working fine but i felt using a Server 2003 license for a simple file server was overkill. So I began to dismantle the setup. First thing was to remove one of the RAID drives and put it aside - my hope was to reattach it to my new Windows setup, add it as a 2nd drive and copy all the files over to the main drive. Then reformat this drive and set it up as the RAID mirror.
So Windows Server 2000 installed with adequate success - network drivers for the Broadcom gigabit NIC were not present, nor were capable video drivers for the E7221 integrated video card. After some fiddling with another system and a USB drive I managed to get the Broadcom drivers loaded. Then with some chance of fluke, my previous post on Windows XP video card drivers and the SC420 worked without a problem under Windows 2000 too!
Upon adding the second drive in the previous RAID array, everything started to look normal. I began copying files from the drive to the Windows 2000 C:\ drive. Mid-way through the operation some funky things happened. BSOD. Trying to reboot was pointless - could not find OS.
Second try this time with the old RAID mirror drive as an external USB drive. Mid-way though the C:\ drive became corrupt. What the?
Then it dawned upon me. What if Windows thinks that a RAID rebuild is necessary and that the new C:\ drive is trying to be sync'ed with the old RAID mirror? It sure seemed plausible.
Although I could find no documentation of this (how would you go about searching for it?), I managed to copy the files through an interim Windows XP installation.
Stranger things have happened to me before.
For those under a similar situation, chances are you've found this post after it has happened.
Live and learn.
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