DCPromo completed but now cant get past loading screen

[CHR1S]

Right, SATA was set to AHCI, so, I swapped it to RAID. Now reinstalling with those new drivers... will keep you posted

[Arthur]

Which SATA port have you connected the HDD to? The spare SATA port to the left of the four drive bays (for the ODD) and the eSATA port are both limited to UDMA33 speeds which may explain why things are taking so long in Windows. You should try this modified BIOS...

 

http://www.livingonthecloud.net/2011/08/hp-microserver-sata-firmware-upgrade.html

 

I updated my MicroServer with this BIOS and I can now set all ports to AHCI.

 

I have 5GB RAM installed BTW.

You're not mixing ECC RAM (1GB) and non-ECC RAM (4GB) are you? That's not going to work.

 

Right, SATA was set to AHCI, so, I swapped it to RAID.

You should leave it set to AHCI. 2008 R2 will use its own generic AHCI driver if you don't use the AMD one.

[CHR1S]

Im using the one next to the drives, will try the upgrade.

 

4Gb non EEC now, not seeing any difference with and with out the EEC ram in the mix.

 

Ive swapped from AHCI to RAID on peters recommendation to get past the dcpromo issue.

[CHR1S]

Saves me typing it here, here's a copy and paste of the exact issue im getting -

 

I'm not an expert on the subject but I have set up about 15 2008 servers and

run DCPROMO without seeing this issue. I have a 2008 R2 server - just

formatted from scratch, applied the 8 or so patches from Windows update.

I'm attempting to set up a brand new domain - new everything and it has

started the DC Promo process. I've set it for 2003 functional level. It

says currently Configuring the local computer to host Active Directory

Services. I realize it said set up can take from a few minutes to several

hours but I've never ever seen it take more than 10 minutes to do dcpromo

before. This is a standalone server running 2008 R2 x64 RTM on a system

with a 3 GHz core 2 processor and 4GB of RAM on a freshly formatted 500GB

hard drive with probably 95% free.

 

OK - It took a tad over an hour but it did complete. My computer has been

booting for about 10 minutes now - still got the indicator running across

the bottom to let me know it is booting. It is strange that it was so

fast in other ways on this system and so slow installing AD. I'll post

back when I've progressed past the boot screen.

 

It took over 25 minutes to get past the scrolling bar on boot up - now it

has been over 10 minutes on a black screen with just the white arrow cursor.

I had installed 2008 on this server previously without issue. Again, this

is a clean install not an upgrade - so far it looks like it is having some

pretty significant issues.

 

OK - it was at the cursor arrow without any background or ctrl alt del to

allow me to login for over an hour - then it finally just rebooted - now

waiting for it to get past the microsoft corporation scrolling windows load

boot - it has been booting for over 10 minutes. So far this isn't going

nearly as well as my first try with Windows 2008 or even 2003.

 

OK - I guess at this point I'm only posting in case someone has a similar

experience of what I've tried. Since I waited over an hour for it to boot

after it took over an hour to run dcpromo, I've gone a head and tried

booting it in safe mode with networking - no luck, safe mode only - no

luck (just hangs on boot - never gets in) and finally directory services

repair - no luck. I've also run memory check - it is fine.

 

from here DCPROMO seems to be stuck - Windows Server 2008 R2 - Active Directory and is unsolved.

[Arthur]

I've swapped from AHCI to RAID on Peter's recommendation to get past the dcpromo issue.

Changing AHCI to RAID will not fix your DCPromo issue because the SATA port you have the HDD connected is running in IDE emulation mode. If the four removable drive bays are currently empty, nothing will be running in AHCI or RAID mode.

[CHR1S]

Urgh, im going round in circles lol

[Arthur]

VM are in the forwarders

Have you tried using other DNS servers for the forwarders such as OpenDNS (208.67.222.222 and 208.67.220.220), Google (8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4) or Symantec (198.153.192.1 and 198.153.194.1)?

 

It would be interesting to see if you still have this issue if you put your HDD in one of the four drive bays.

Edited September 11, 2011 by Arthur

[CHR1S]

After further testing, in this case it was the "disable write caching" issue. I believe dcpromo turns off write caching on the drive where the AD data files are stored. With some hardware combinations, attempting to disable the write cache on a drive can hang the system. In my case, an AMD 790GX chipset motherboard (SB750? southbridge) and an older WD 120GB SATA drive, attempting to disable the write cache on the boot drive (drive c:), causes the system to hang.

 

If your dcpromo problems sound similar to this thread, it's easy to test: before bothering with a dcpromo, try disabling the write cache on the drive where you plan to store the AD data files. (Use device manager.) If it hangs there, dcpromo will probably hang.

 

Seems to be my next test for tonight.

[CHR1S]

So it seems the issue could be the fact that the 2 aux SATA ports are in IDE emulation mode and cant have write cache disabled. I think its a bios hack on the cards

[CHR1S]

Which SATA port have you connected the HDD to? The spare SATA port to the left of the four drive bays (for the ODD) and the eSATA port are both limited to UDMA33 speeds which may explain why things are taking so long in Windows. You should try this modified BIOS...

 

Living on the Cloud: HP Microserver: BIOS upgrade

 

I updated my MicroServer with this BIOS and I can now set all ports to AHCI.

 

That fixed it!!! Woooo

 

IDE Emulation was stopping write caching being disabled, patched the bios and its like a rocket!

[Arthur]

That's brilliant news! Glad to hear you finally got it working.

[CHR1S]

A pint for all involved at BETT or where ever