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How to Mirror Boot drive in Windows 2012 RC

Answered How to Mirror Boot drive in Windows 2012 RC

  • Wednesday, June 27, 2012 5:01 PM
     
     
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    I want to Software mirror the boot drive on an installed Windows Server 2012 RC.  I can't figure out how to do this?  It was simple in 2000+ but now things are different...  I can see that you can create a Storage Space and mirror but how do you do it for the Boot partition?

    Thanks

     

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  • Wednesday, June 27, 2012 5:32 PM
     
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    Yes, you can do it.  First, you must convert your boot disk to a dynamic disk.  Then convert your target disk to a dynamic disk.  Once that is done, you can setup the mirror (w/out even having to reboot).

     
  • Tuesday, October 16, 2012 12:40 PM
     
     
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    Hello, would this allow for one drive to fail and continue to operate normally and boot?

    Also is it compatible to have a greater amount of drives than 2 or use mirror + hotspare?

    Thank you,

    Brett.

     
  • Wednesday, October 17, 2012 1:01 AM
     
     
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    Hello, would this allow for one drive to fail and continue to operate normally and boot?

    Also is it compatible to have a greater amount of drives than 2 or use mirror + hotspare?

    Thank you,

    Brett.

    Drive fail and continue?  That's one of the major reasons to use RAID.

    Not sure of your question on the second part.  Hot spare is not a function of dynamic disks, so the answer to that is 'no'.  As for the first part of your question, are you asking if you can create a mirror set with more than two drives?  The dynamic disk capability of Windows provides a pretty simplistic RAID capability - not near what you can get from hardware RAID.

    tim

     
  • Monday, November 12, 2012 1:58 PM
     
     
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    Hi,

    I’ve first tried to make a mirror of a Windows Server 2008 and after converting the disks 0 and 1 to dynamic disks I was able to mirror both partitions (C: and also System Reserved).

    Now, I am trying to do the same thing in a Windows 2012 Server but after the installation, the automatically generated partitions are: “System EFI” and “System Recover” instead of “System Reserved”. In these new partitions I don’t have the “Add
    Mirror” option that I have for C: (even after converting the disks to “dynamic disks”)

    DarienHawk67, on your screenshot you have a “System Reserved” partition in a Windows Server 2012. How did you do that?

    Picture1: Windows Server 2012 without the "Add Mirror".

    Thank you very much for your help in advance,
    Best,
    Mario Dourado

    • Edited by mdourado Monday, November 12, 2012 1:59 PM
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  • Thursday, November 15, 2012 4:06 PM
     
     
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    We experience a similar problem.  Before and After converting disks to dynamic, when trying to add a mirror, we get the following error:

    "Cannot mirror the current boot volume on another disk with a different partition style."

    ----

    The resolution was to also "Convert to MBR disk".  In a test case, mirroring to a Basic disk, the process prompted to convert the disk to Dynamic disk.

    AJ

    • Edited by IceHiker Thursday, November 15, 2012 4:17 PM
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  • Saturday, January 12, 2013 6:08 AM
     
     
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    I have the same problem. Two 3TB disks (identical as the mdourado's). There's no any guide on how to do this on Server 2012 on the Internet. Any help would be appreciated.

    Thanks!

    Aleksandar

     
  • Saturday, January 12, 2013 9:35 PM
     
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    I'm not sure who has marked Darien's post as answer, but it is miles away from any useful answer.

    No offence!

    Aleksandar

    • Proposed As Answer by LoterX Friday, April 26, 2013 10:42 PM
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  • Friday, January 25, 2013 1:02 AM
     
     
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    Hi Aleksander,

    I am not sure if you received an answer yet but what Darien is saying worked for me.

    I set up a Windows Server 2012 RTM server on a Toshiba MK1001TRKB SAS 1TB drive in a Supermicro system with hot swap drive bays.

    I added a second 1TB drive and then set them both as dynamic drives and then selected each partition and mirrored the drives.

    After the drives synched, I pulled the first drive to simulate catastrophic failure.

    System kept running.

    I installed a new drive and then tried to break the old mirror and create a new mirror. The system would not break the mirror from the missing drive.

    I rebooted the system and was given the option to select which plex to boot from. I selected the second one. System booted. I was then able to remove the mirror from the missing drive and create a mirror with the new drive.

    The drives are currently synching.

    P.S.

    I did run across a post where a user was not able to do the same thing without adding a mbr record to the second drive.
    I am not sure if I had already done this or if because the BIOS shows the windows boot manager as the 1st boot partition.
    They were using a SATA system and I am using the SAS controller on a Supermicro X9DRL-3F.
    I will try to run more tests and dig a little to see why this is working.

    Windows Server 2012 is very cool.

    Hope this helps,

    Victor

    Victor Camacho Your-IT-Group