NF7-S Hangs at Verifying DMI pool message

PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
edited December 2004 in Hardware
I just finished completing a Windows XP installation on my two WD Raptors connected to an Abit NF-7S. Being concerned about backing my OS up, I used Norton Ghost to make an image of the OS partition to one of my data drives. Everything went fine until the Bootup process hung at the Verifying DMI Pool Data message. :eek2:

I've tried rebooting, resetting my CMOS jumper, checking hard drive cables, and I've force updated the ESCD in my BIOS. Is there anything else I can do? Maybe reflash the BIOS? Reinstall the OS over itself? Windows recovery console? Any HELP is greatly welcome and appreciated! Happy holidays...at least it was when my computer was working!:doh:

Comments

  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Um, wipe image and use XP's builtin backup???

    IF you imaged the thing, and then got no further than the BIOS DMI table update, it might be trying what to do with TWO bootable drives.

    Are the RAPTORs RAIDed??? If so, check your RAID BIOS and see if it has errors, this can hang a BIOS near that point, as Ghost does NOT knowe how to backup inside a RAID volume, it will happily make a real driect access partition to image to on ramining space. I HOPE you did not manage to let Ghost try to overwrite end of drive, your volume is BROKEN if so. What year version of Ghost???

    I hate to say this, but this is one reason I do not use Ghost much on anythng RAIDed, it does not like logical volumes, and likes to hide its backup partition. IF it thought it had one drive from RAID controller, it might have tried to partition create ACROSS BOTH DRIVES. Ghost Professional (Enterprise) knows more about RAID than the home version of Ghost, a LOT more. Give it a real unraided drive for backup TARGET, it will usually do OK, if there is partiion room after overhead for a partition create and then backup to fit. BUT, it is persistant enough that on RAID, you wipe things you did not want to if you create a non-RAID image in a RAID volume by mistake. I use other tools for this backup chore.

    John.
    ADD: Yeah, try what Thrax says, but I think part of the problem is that RAID is enabled, RAID BIOS hung with an invalid drive structure in volume, and siolly DMI lookup hung cuz RAID BIOS went non-repsonsive and main BIOS had RAID on.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Unplug your memory and your HDDs. Reinsert both.
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Thrax,
    Both memory and HDs unplugged and reinserted. No change.

    Ageek,
    It was Ghost 2003. I was careful to select the C: drive (RAID) as source and F: drive (IDE Backup) as destination, but you never know. How come you never told me Ghost was a POS with RAID?!:hrm: Just joking, man. :D

    I appreciate both of your help. I also just reflashed the BIOS with no luck. I'm thinking of reinstalling XP over itself now unless you all can think of anything else. Somehow either Ghost FUBAR'ed my OS drives or I did.
  • ThraxThrax 🐌 Austin, TX Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    I would just reinstall the OS at this point.

    I think you've done everything of merit, unless someone has a spectacular idea we've forgotten.
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    I agree.....pisses me off though. The whole reason I was using Ghost was to perfectly reinstall my OS from just such a scenario.

    Any other program recommendations that do the same thing (Driveimage)..or do they all choke on RAIDed OSs?
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Well, you have a volume on C:, one bridged volume over two drives???? And Ghost was RUNNING on C:??? And not from floppy??? Take a look at the ghost image froma Ghost floppy emergency set if you made one, see if it can read it at all, and see if the silly thing managed to hide source instead of hiding destination\target. It HAS been known to do this also.....

    THEN you would have a HIDDEN RAID volume, the one you want to boot from, and visible copy, the IDE drive which might even be bootable.... :D

    Reboot, write down RAID BIOS settings, shut down computer, unplug SATA, reboot and enter BIOS and tell it to boot from HDD-0 if you backed up to a primary master IDE hookup, see what happens. Every once in awhile a Ghost user manages to let it hide the source and leave the target unhidden, and ghost will then typically amke TARGET bootable and source unbootable. IF the IDE boot works, you can do it again, with target the RAID, and see what happens. Leave it to hide source, and you have backup and possibly a bootable RAID volume if you reset RAID to what you wrote down and plug in SATA again before doing backup. Some Ghost CDS are nice, they let you CD boot in an emergency, and make floppies to run Ghost off of, if you have no floppy boot.

    That is the ONLY set of things that could cause this other than a radical fubar by Ghost. IF you fubarred your RAID image, one way to fix, which will take a long while, is to low-level or zero pack the drives as individual drives, then reestablish a RAID ARRAY, and if IDE boots to XP, then you can do a recovery to the RAID from your IDE if it has a viable backup actually done on it.

    John.
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited December 2003
    Well Gents...thanks for both of your help and advice. Somehow Ghost automatically or my own complacency allowed the program to write over part of my C: drive when I tried to image the OS partition. Luckily, it only took me a couple hours of reinstalling (while watching American Chopper!). Lesson learned.....

    Either of you know a safer way to image a RAID OS partition (on NF7-S SATA controllers) to a PATA hard drive on the standard mobo IDE connectors for backup purposes?
  • chuggerchugger
    edited January 2004
    I had a similar problem after installing Norton SystemWork 2003 Pro. I just wanted to give Ghost a try and opted to run Ghost interactively under advanced options. I just wanted to see if Ghost would recognize my drives and it seemed to so I cancelled and it would not reboot, hung at verifying dmi pool. I have the Abit IC7-Max3 with two 36 gig western digital raptors raided as raid zero on the Silicon controller. I didn't panic too badly because I had used Drive Image 7.0 two days earlier, it works. But I thought maybe first I would try sticking in another drive, doing a fresh install and using Partition Magic to repair the array, or maybe delete the extra partition that it looked like Ghost had created. (Drive Image was letting me explore the drive even though it would not boot) After installing windows xp to another drive I installed the Silicon SATA driver and Partition Magic. Partition Magic listed the drive but showed it to be "BAD", funny thing is Windows explorer was letting me explore the drive and Drive Image let me do a fresh backup of the drive. No extra partitions were listed either. After doing a fresh backup, I rebooted and deleted and recreated the array, then booted into windows, used Partion Magic to partition it the way it was, then used Drive Image to restore it and set it active. After rebooting and setting the boot priority back to boot "Add in device" again it booted up like before with no lose of data. Last time I will ever try Ghost, maybe :)
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    chugger,
    it seems that you were much smarter than me on Ghost. It sounds like DriveImage worked like a charm. Would you recommend I try that to image my OS? If so, any tips or suggestions.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Guys, sorry to say but you need full latest version Enterprise Ghost for XP of SP1 or up with RAID of other than IDE type RAID 0. The Ghost with NSW is a limited function Ghost, has no SATA RAID support. PowerQuest stuff is better for that, period. PowerQuest's pro\enterprise stuff REALLY rocks.

    John.
  • PreacherPreacher Potomac, MD Icrontian
    edited January 2004
    Driveimage it is then. Thanks!
  • john1john1
    edited January 2004
    I am having the same problem but with windows 2000 pro. I have done a full install from the cd and its fine until verifying DMI pool data, i have tried to reinstall windows and i have no luck so if anyone knows anything that could help me it would be great.
    thanks,
    john
  • shadowdrshadowdr
    edited December 2004
    Sorry to tell you it is not Ghost.I am having the same trouble as you and haven't used ghost yet.If I remove the sata connector it will then boot without problem.I just ran across this doin a google search.It seems as though many folks are having the same trouble.I think it could be the bios but am having floppy failure to add to my troubles,so I cannot flash it.
    When I find the cure I will repost.
    I am running the bios 27 from the windows based flash utility.Are you using it as well?
  • GobblesGobbles Ventura California
    edited December 2004
    I use Power Quest Drive Image Pro 5 all day long with raids, ide, with never so much as a hickup. raid 0 1 and 5's, it dont care, ive saved the image to drives, network, and 1 gig compact flash.
  • shadowdrshadowdr
    edited December 2004
    It seems it was the serial adapter. It just quit working.Got hold of a sata drive and it then passed the dmi pool.
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