Q. Windows Server 2003 does not start after you remove a mirror from the boot disk and then physically switch the boot disk and the mirror disk?

If you add a mirror to a boot disk in Windows Server 2003 and use the Computer Management dialog to remove it, switching the boot disk and the mirror disk causes your computer to fail to start.

This behavior occurs because the boot disk information was removed from the Boot.ini file on both the boot disk and the mirror disk when you removed the mirror.

You could have prevented this problem using the following procedure:

1. Disconnect the mirror disk from the computer.

2. Remove the mirror from the boot disk using the Computer Management dialog.

3. Switch the boot disk and the mirror disk.

4. Start Windows Server 2003.

To recover from this problem:

1. If necessary, configure your BIOS to allow starting from a CD-ROM drive.

2. Insert the Windows Server 2003 CD into the CD-ROM drive and restart the server.

3. Press the space bar when you receive Press any key to boot from CD.

4. Press R in response to:

This portion of the Setup program prepares Windows Server 2003 to run on your computer: To setup Windows Server 2003 now, press ENTER To repair a Windows Server 2003 installation using Recovery Console, press R To quit Setup without installing Windows Server 2003, press F3

5. If you have a multiple-boot system, select the operating system that you want to access from the Recovery Console.

6. When prompted for a password, type the Administrator password.

7. In the Recovery Console, type Bootcfg and press Enter.

8. Make changes to the Boot.ini file and save them.

9. In the Recovery Console, type Exit and press Enter to restart your computer.

NOTE: The Boot.ini file on my disk contains:

[boot loader]timeout=6default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS[operating systems]multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003, Standard" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptOut

Press for the available boot.ini switches and the ARC path.