Upgrading Server Hard Drive Using Norton Ghost

Last weekend I undertook the task of upgrading our company server Hard Drive for increased capacity.

The Hard Drive of the server was in mirrored in a Raid 1 array, i.e. 2 Hard Drives of 72 GB each, with only 6 GB allocated to local drive C and the rest allocated to drive D.

Before I began the following were considered important

- All data backed up
- Users informed of the downtime over the weekend
- New Hard Drives (in this case 2 x 300GB SCSI HDD)
- Norton Ghost
- Plenty of time

Below are the steps, in the order I carried out the process of upgrading

- Switched the server off and took out the 72GB HDD in slot 1, and replaced it with the new 300 GB HDD.

- Started up the server, so that new Hard Drive gets recognised.

- Switched off the server again, and rebooted this time with Norton Ghost in the floppy drive. On the Ghost screen, calculated and created a partition of 40 GB for drive C, and the rest about 246 GB, was allocated to Drive D. Began to Ghost from the drive in Slot 0 (i.e. the 72 GB HDD).

- The process was to take a long time, about 20 hours. Therefore, left the process running overnight.

- Returned back the following day, the Ghost process was completed.

- Started up the server, and then moved the drive in slot 0 (the 72 GB HDD) and moved the drive in slot 1(the 300 GB HDD - on which the ghost image was made) into slot 0.

- Rebooted and converted the converted the drive in slot 0 (the 300 GB HDD – on which the Ghost took place) into dynamic from Disk Management in Windows.

- Restarted the server, twice, to pickup and recognise the drives

- Inserted the new 300 GB HDD into slot 1, and restarted again.

- Once the server had booted up, opened up Disk Management, the drive was recognised and therefore synchronised the drive.

- The synchronisation was estimated to take approximately another 20-22 hours.

- The following day, the synchronisation had completed giving 40 GB on drive C and about 246 GB on drive D.

Gobbledy Gook on Internet Explorer

'I get Gobbledy Gook when I tried to get on the Internet' This is exactly what the user said, happens when he launches up Internet Explorer and the Home Page opens up. A screenshot sums up precisely what I mean.

Surprisingly enough it was happening to the home page, set as http://uk.msn.com/, and a few other URL's that we tried, but not for all web page addresses or URL's!!

To start off, I checked that the coding was incorrect (under View>encoding) which it was as only some sites seemed to have been effected. I deleted all Temporary Internet files, and as this had no effect either I suspected there was a virus, and therefore immediately ran McAfee. It turned out that there was a Trojan and had effected server2.exe. Moreover the Antivirus was unable to clean the Trojan but had moved it. I than tried to launch Internet Explorer but ran into the same issue again. Had a look on the Internet and a few forums but couldn't find much. I also ran a Scan disk on start up, which didn't seem to have any effect either.

Luckily the user was running XP, and so I decided to attempt to run system restore to fix this issue. Having gone back a week in time for the restore point, I was quite impressed with System Restore as it rectified this problem!!

Following this I instantly ran a Virus update and a Windows update.

Wireless Keyboard & Mouse

As I had to buy more than one in quantity terms; I was looking for a good wireless and keyboard set. Having already purchased on numerous occasions a Microsoft keyboard and mouse, I wanted to try out something new and different, and generally compact in size.

Anyone who owns the Microsoft most popular wireless keyboard and mouse, such as the Microsoft Wireless Desktop 1000 series, will know that both the keyboard and the mouse are quite bulky and heavy. Not to mention a few having problems with the actual installation of the drivers and software as well.

Therefore, I opted to go for the Logitech 2.4Ghz Wireless Desktop from ebuyer at £30.94 (inc VAT).

The 2.4ghz technology is a new thing, with only a handful of vendors offering this. Installation wasn’t a problem all, as there are no drivers required. I just had to plug the wireless adapter in the back of the computer and insert the excellent Duracell batteries supplied for the mouse and the keyboard; which brought this to life. However, I must say that you do need to on the workstation or the PC a local administrator or have administrator privileges, as otherwise it will not be setup correctly.

I must say that for the price it is very very good. It doesn’t have a huge array of buttons, just necessary and adequate buttons such as calc, volume up down and mute, WWW, back, and mail. It is also very lightweight and compact. The range is equally impressive with at least 10ft and battery consumption still going strong after 2 weeks.

Deal On Dell

Later this afternoon I was asked by my MD to purchase a laptop. He has a couple of Thinkpad's but surprisingly he wanted to go for a Dell. I know, lately, Dell has been in the Press over the issue with their batteries across the majoerity of their range.

This, however, was a quite a good offer on a

I am an IT Manager and Project Manager for a small company in London. I intend to blog about I.T issues and problems that I encounter giving advice and solutions where I can. This blog is also intended to provide a review about I.T products which I use and purchase.