Disk Renumbering - Compaq 108164-003 - ProLiant - 800 Integration Notes

PCI Bus Numbering in a Microsoft Windows NT Environment
where as, the Compaq Network Teaming and Configuration Utility supports Compaq 10/100 and
Gigabit NICs, discussed in this document.
Note: When configuration changes are necessary due to server maintenance or upgrade,
Compaq recommends that you plan your changes carefully, document all original settings and
bindings, and backup the system.
Physical controller modifications made after the initial configuration can adversely affect the
original bindings. To make the controller functional again, you must reset the controller and
device driver bindings. Network controllers must bind to device drivers to be functional and
provide connectivity on a network. System Administrators unaware that new bus number
assignments were made after a configuration change might falsely believe that the hardware is
broken.
Compaq and Microsoft provide several utilities you can use to reset device driver and controller
bindings. As long as the System Administrator knows bus numbers are assigned in a server, the
Windows NT registry can be reset with minimal effort. See the section titled "PCI Test
Configurations with ProLiant Servers" in this document.

Disk Renumbering

Disk reordering can complicate an
administrator's ability to identify
what a particular disk volume
contains when the numbers change
in Disk Administrator. However,
disk number reordering does not
affect the contents of the disk
volume.
partition and that loads as Disk 0. Compaq recommends running the Disk Administrator after
completing a Windows NT installation to ensure that the boot drive receives a signature properly
(Drive C:) and locks the drive letter to the partition.
The Compaq SCSI and Array Disk Controllers have a Windows NT Registry entry used to
determine disk controller-loading order. If disk numbers/drive letters become reordered because of a
changed drive load order, the operation of the applications on the disk should not be affected. When
you create a partition on a disk drive; Windows NT Disk Administrator should be run to
permanently lock the drive letter to the partition even if Drive C: is the only disk in the system.
In simple configurations, identifying contents on a particular drive or volume might not be an issue.
In more complex configurations consisting of multiple drives and volumes, the order in which the
drives/volumes are listed can change when a physical modification is made to the disk
configuration. As mentioned earlier, Windows NT Disk Administrator lists drives and volumes in
the order they are discovered.
Disk ordering in a simple example:
Order of detection (Before Change)
Disk 0
Disk 1
13UK-1200A-WWEN
The Windows NT Disk Administrator located under
Start Programs Administrative Tools (Common) contains a graphical
# #
tool provided with the operating system to manage disk drives. This tool
allows Disk Administrators to display and track disk devices. Windows
NT lists drives and volumes in this utility in the order discovered at
system startup. Each drive detected during discovery shows in the Disk
Administrator with a disk number (starting at 0). The hard drive that
boots the system must have one partition designated as the active
Drive Letter and Label
C: NT OS
D: ACCT files
12