My new server has been running great for about a week. I'm ready to decommision the old server but I need to move a RAID controller from the old server to the new server. When I install the driver for the controller I'm told to reboot, after which it loads the recovery console. I'm assuming the boot order is messed up or something but I don't know for sure. The RAID controller does not contain the boot partition from the old server, it's just storage. I've tried running startrep.exe but it says it does not detect a problem. If I run bcdedit /enum it tells me the Windows Boot Manager is looking at C: and the Windows Boot Loader is looking at D:. I've tried running: bcdedit /set {default} device partition=c: bcdedit /set {default} osdevice partition=c: bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=c but it didn't help. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

shot in the blue, but you can take a look in your bios. depending on your bios you might be able to select the order in which the controllers are tried to boot from

Thanks for the reply. I should have mentioned that I checked that as well.

What operating system is new? What OS was old? You may have to boot into controller bios of old adapter and turn off boot from device option then also enter controller bios of new adapter and make sure boot from device is still selected. Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional -Microsoft MVP [Windows]

The new server is 2008 R2, the old is Server 2003. However the controller I'm moving only contains data, not the OS of the old server and was never set to boot. I don't believe it's a controller BIOS issue because when I boot to Last Known Good it boots fine. It's only when it boots after I install the driver for the controller that it takes me to the recovery console. To check if it was a driver compatibility issue I was able to re-install Server 2008 with the controller in the new server and it recognized it fine and I was able to access the data on it, however I wasn't able to get one of my Hyper-V VMs to function correctly so I restored the backup and am back to trying to get this to work.

What disk controller is it? Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional -Microsoft MVP [Windows]

The controller I'm trying to move is a 3WARE 9500S. The server also has a PERC 6/i in it.

After you add driver does it boot before seating the 3WARE ? Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional -Microsoft MVP [Windows]

After you add driver does it boot before seating the 3WARE ? After you add the driver I'd check Device Manager|Storage Controllers device properties for resource conflicts. Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional -Microsoft MVP [Windows]

Good question. It does boot with the driver installed but the card removed.

Then I think it is trying to boot from 3WARE or possible resource conflict. You might also try another slot. Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional -Microsoft MVP [Windows]

So after messing around with it some more this is what I have: Without the drivers for the 3WARE controller installed bcdedit has the Boot Manager as partition=C:. The Boot Loader has device partition=E:, os device partition=E:. When I install the driver for the controller it goes to the recovery console, I can't even get to safe mode. However when I check bcdedit it has these exact same values for everything. From the recovery console I can go to drives C: and E: and they are correct. Running startrep.exe says it can't find a problem. I can re-install Server 2008 R2 with the 3WARE controller installed (installing to a RAID 1 on the PERC) and everything works fine, I'm able to access the data on the 3WARE card. However from here I haven't been able to get my exported VMs running so it doesn't look like this will work for me, so I just restore from backup. It seems to me that adding another drive is throwing off the boot loader but the settings all seem right. I figure there must be something I can do to get it booting with the 3WARE controller as it's obviously not a driver issue but at this point I have no idea what to do. If anyone has some ideas I'll try pretty much anything at this point. The only thing I can't do is move the card to another PCI slot because I only have one that has an unobstructed area for the controller which is PCI-X.

Hi, I suggest trying the following steps after installing the Raid Controller driver: 1. Put the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation disc into the disc drive, and then start the computer. 2. Press a key when the message indicating "Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …". appears. 3. Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next. 4. Click Repair your computer. 5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next. 6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt. 7. Type BOOTREC /FIXMBR, and then press ENTER. 8. Type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT, and then press ENTER. 9. Type Bootrec /RebuildBcd, and then press ENTER. If you still cannot boot, please let me know what error message you received when booting the system. Meanwhile, I suggest contacting the Raid Controller manufacturer for assistance. Tim Quan TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.

Just checking, has the situation changed? Earlier it booted with driver installed, card not seated. Regards, Dave Patrick .... Microsoft Certified Professional Microsoft MVP [Windows]

Any update?

I tried running 7. Type BOOTREC /FIXMBR , and then press ENTER. 8. Type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT , and then press ENTER. 9. Type Bootrec /RebuildBcd , and then press ENTER. and these didn't do anything for me either. In the end I had to do an in-place upgrade with the card installed. After the upgrade the server booted fine with the 3WARE card. The upgrade caused a few other issues but I was able to get them sorted out. I still feel there must be a way to get a server booting after adding another RAID controller but I was out of time and had to get something going. Thanks for all of the suggestions, I really appreciate the help.

Hi, Thank you for letting me know how you resolved this issue. Tim Quan TechNet Subscriber Support in forum If you have any feedback on our support, please contact tngfb@microsoft.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please remember to click “Mark as Answer” on the post that helps you, and to click “Unmark as Answer” if a marked post does not actually answer your question. This can be beneficial to other community members reading the thread.