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| Set up a dynamic boot and system volume (Optional) | ||
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You may want to make the Windows boot and system partition into a dynamic volume and mirror that volume. Then, if the disk containing the boot and system volume fails, you can start the computer from the disk containing the mirrors of the volume.
To make a boot and system partition dynamic, you include the disk that contains the basic active boot and system partition in a dynamic disk group. When you do that, the boot and system partition is automatically upgraded to a dynamic simple volume that is active - that is, the system will boot from that volume.
For an optimal setup, it is recommended that you have a separate disk for the dynamic system and boot volume and mirror it with one or two disks. Thus, you will have a boot dynamic disk group with two or three disks. You then need to have an additional disk or disks for the data. The data disks would be in another dynamic disk group.
In Windows documentation, the boot volume is the partition that contains the operating system and the system volume is the partition that the computer starts from. The boot and system volumes can be in the same partition or different partitions for MBR style partitions. For GPT style partitions, the boot and system volumes must be in different partitions.
This following procedure is written for an MBR style partition with the boot and system volumes in the same partition. If the boot and system volumes are in different partitions, then these steps can be used as a guide to apply to each volume separately.
For GPT style partitions, the following procedure can also be used as a guide to apply to each volume separately. However, use the Microsoft bootcfg.exe utility instead of editing the boot.ini as described in the procedure.
Setting up a dynamic boot and system volume for MBR style partitions:
If something goes wrong with the original system and boot volume or its mirror, you can boot your system from the floppy. Test the boot floppy while your system is in a known good state.
When you designate a disk as part of a dynamic disk group, the entire disk becomes a dynamic disk - that is, a disk capable of having dynamic volumes. Any basic partitions on that disk become dynamic volumes. Thus, the boot and system partition automatically becomes a dynamic simple volume. You do not have to mark it as the active volume, because it is automatically made active.
There is no command in Storage Foundation for making an existing dynamic volume active - that is, to make it the volume that the computer starts from. The only way to make a dynamic volume active through SFW is to upgrade the existing active basic system partition by including the disk that contains the partition as a member of a dynamic disk group. You can make a basic partition active through the command Mark Partition Active.
The troubleshooting section covers the difficulties that can occur.
If a break-mirror operation is performed on a mirrored boot volume, the resulting new volume - the broken-off mirror - is not usable as a boot volume.