RAID questions again / BSOD for inaccessible boot device

Sorry if I start a new thread about this but I haven't understood one
thing, and it's important to me:

I wrote:
If for some reason (e.g. mistake) I change the IDE drivers under
Windows
and I put "Standard PCI IDE" drivers instead of the ones of the RAID
chipset, will Windows2000 boot the next time or it will hang? If it
hangs, how can I set the driver back to the correct one?

Alien Zord replied:
No, after loading the 32 bit drivers it will BSOD with the message
"Inaccessible boot drive". A possible solution is to boot from the CD
into
repair console and copy the necessary driver into
\winnt\system32\drivers
folder. I've done that with many drivers but don't remember doing it
with a
RAID driver. Best is to keep a Ghost backup.

My new question:

I don't understand:
If I change driver by mistake from windows 2000, the driver files for
the RAID controller would STAY in \winnt\system32\drivers, wouldn't
they? I think only the references for the driver "in use" in the
registry would change, pointing to the "Standard PCI IDE" driver files
(also located there).

So I wouldn't need to copy the drivers to that directory, and doing that
would not solve the problem... am I wrong?

"Lollo" wrote in message
...
Sorry if I start a new thread about this but I haven't understood one
thing, and it's important to me:


From your previous post:
Me: Best is to keep a Ghost backup.
You: Exactly the thing I wanted to avoid with the RAID :-(((

The purpose of redundant storage is to protect from hardware failure. It
will 'not' protect you from user error. Only backups will.

If for some reason (e.g. mistake) I change the IDE drivers under
Windows
and I put "Standard PCI IDE" drivers instead of the ones of the RAID
snipped


You can backup the registry hives "software" and "system" (using the Backup
applet that copies them into Windows\repair folder - in WinXP or
Winnt\repair\regback - in Win2k) and then manually copy them back using the
Repair Console. It will take you an hour or two whilst it takes me 5 minutes
to recover server's OS from a Ghost backup.

From your previous post:
Me: Best is to keep a Ghost backup.
You: Exactly the thing I wanted to avoid with the RAID :-(((

The purpose of redundant storage is to protect from hardware failure.
It
will 'not' protect you from user error. Only backups will.

I know this, but I don't like Ghost as a way to "backup" files because
it takes one hard disk each time you ghost, so you have to overwrite
previous ghosts at a steady pace.

If you realize you have deleted a few important files by mistake, but
you did that not recently and you have already overwritten that ghost,
you are lost. If you ghost less often, you can lose recent changes to
everything. Incremental file backup is better. Or at least I think, in
facts I don't know Ghost in detail.



If for some reason (e.g. mistake) I change the IDE drivers under
Windows
and I put "Standard PCI IDE" drivers instead of the ones of the
RAID
snipped


You can backup the registry hives "software" and "system" (using the
Backup
applet that copies them into Windows\repair folder - in WinXP or
Winnt\repair\regback - in Win2k) and then manually copy them back
using the
Repair Console. It will take you an hour or two whilst it takes me 5
minutes
to recover server's OS from a Ghost backup.

Understood.

Is there also a way to modify the registry manually, from the repair
console? (something similar to regedit)

"Lollo" wrote in message
...
I know this, but I don't like Ghost as a way to "backup" files because
it takes one hard disk each time you ghost, so you have to overwrite
previous ghosts at a steady pace.


I said I use Ghost to backup the OS and software, not the data. I keep data
seperately either on a server or a seperate partition or drive. This is
backed up daily, at work onto a DAT tape, at home onto a DVD disk. I use
Ghost to create image files of the OS drive or partition on another drive or
across network. This is usualy done after a major software change or update.
For PCs that I experiment a lot with I keep several image files.


Is there also a way to modify the registry manually, from the repair
console? (something similar to regedit)


No. You can repair the boot sector or partition table, check disks for
errors, manipulate files and directories, display running services etc. but
you cannot edit the registry hives.

BTW, you can install Repair console as a start-up option so no CD is
required to run it.

"Lollo" wrote in message ...
Sorry if I start a new thread about this but I haven't understood one
thing, and it's important to me:

I wrote:
If for some reason (e.g. mistake) I change the IDE drivers under
Windows
and I put "Standard PCI IDE" drivers instead of the ones of the RAID
chipset, will Windows2000 boot the next time or it will hang? If it
hangs, how can I set the driver back to the correct one?

Alien Zord replied:
No, after loading the 32 bit drivers it will BSOD with the message
"Inaccessible boot drive". A possible solution is to boot from the CD
into
repair console and copy the necessary driver into
\winnt\system32\drivers
folder. I've done that with many drivers but don't remember doing it
with a
RAID driver. Best is to keep a Ghost backup.

My new question:

I don't understand:
If I change driver by mistake from windows 2000, the driver files for
the RAID controller would STAY in \winnt\system32\drivers, wouldn't
they? I think only the references for the driver "in use" in the
registry would change, pointing to the "Standard PCI IDE" driver files
(also located there).

So I wouldn't need to copy the drivers to that directory, and doing that
would not solve the problem... am I wrong?


I don't understand why people still bother with a headache of software
based RAID controllers, when there's a hardware based, driver-free
alterntatives available based on IDE. Among others, I would check out
DupliDisk from Arco (www.duplidisk.com).

Good luck!