Drive letter query

I have a server running Windows 2003 Standard, SP2. It has two hardware
arrays. These show in Windows Explorer, and in Disk Management as C: and Y:,
however Computer Management\Shares shows admin shares for C$, D$ (optical),
F$ and Y$.

At the command prompt I can navigate F: and Y:, which show the same drive
name and serial number at the DIR command. Content is identical.

There are several user shares for F$ shown in Computer Management, and these
are all mapped correctly by clients.

The F: drive is not available through Windows Explorer, and the shares are
not shown when viewing the Y: drive in Windows Explorer (though the folders
are).

In Disk Management, F is not available in the "Change Drive Letter" utility.

The SUBST command shows no substitutions in force.

I am sure that F: and Y: are one and the same drive, but I can't explain the
two drive letters and am concerned that there may be a problem waiting to
happen...

Has anyone got any ideas on what is happening here?

Thanks,
Paul

 

How are the drives presneted? are they local?
if they are a SAN drive, you may need to load multipathing software from the
vendor.

"PaulLG" wrote:

> I have a server running Windows 2003 Standard, SP2. It has two hardware
> arrays. These show in Windows Explorer, and in Disk Management as C: and Y:,
> however Computer Management\Shares shows admin shares for C$, D$ (optical),
> F$ and Y$.
>
> At the command prompt I can navigate F: and Y:, which show the same drive
> name and serial number at the DIR command. Content is identical.
>
> There are several user shares for F$ shown in Computer Management, and these
> are all mapped correctly by clients.
>
> The F: drive is not available through Windows Explorer, and the shares are
> not shown when viewing the Y: drive in Windows Explorer (though the folders
> are).
>
> In Disk Management, F is not available in the "Change Drive Letter" utility.
>
> The SUBST command shows no substitutions in force.
>
> I am sure that F: and Y: are one and the same drive, but I can't explain the
> two drive letters and am concerned that there may be a problem waiting to
> happen...
>
> Has anyone got any ideas on what is happening here?
>
> Thanks,
> Paul
>
>
>
>

 

Dear Customer,

Thank you for posting in newsgroup.

Based on the symptom, I agree with the community member said.

As drive F: and Y: show the same drive name and serial number at the DIR
command, the possible reason may be that they are properly the same
physical drive.

Could you please check to see if the disk present locally on the server? Or
do they locate on a network storage device (ex. SAN)?

If they are locate on the network storage device, these 2 drives could be
the same drive show in the Disk management by MPIO.

You may use Diskpart utility in the command line prompt to list disk and
list volume to see how many disks and volumes show in the result.

C:\> diskpart

DISKPART> LIST DISK

DISKPART> LIST VOLUME

Hope the information will be helpful.

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support

 

Thanks for the relpies,

There is no SAN at this site.

All drives are local to the server on an HP Smart Array 641. Disk0 is RAID5,
disk1 is two physical disks configured as one logical RAID0 array.

Running DISKPART as suggested reports;
DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ---------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 273 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Online 559 GB 89 KB *

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 Y Archive NTFS Simple 559 GB Healthy
Volume 1 D CD-ROM 0 B Healthy
Volume 2 C NTFS Partition 273 GB Healthy
System


Paul

"David Shen [MSFT]" <v-dashen@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:kBo%23eXbvJHA.4272@TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl...
> Dear Customer,
>
> Thank you for posting in newsgroup.
>
> Based on the symptom, I agree with the community member said.
>
> As drive F: and Y: show the same drive name and serial number at the DIR
> command, the possible reason may be that they are properly the same
> physical drive.
>
> Could you please check to see if the disk present locally on the server?
> Or
> do they locate on a network storage device (ex. SAN)?
>
> If they are locate on the network storage device, these 2 drives could be
> the same drive show in the Disk management by MPIO.
>
> You may use Diskpart utility in the command line prompt to list disk and
> list volume to see how many disks and volumes show in the result.
>
> C:\> diskpart
>
> DISKPART> LIST DISK
>
> DISKPART> LIST VOLUME
>
> Hope the information will be helpful.
>
> David Shen
> Microsoft Online Technical Support
>

 

Hello Paul,

Thanks for the reply.

Based on the information, the issue seems to be unusual, in order to narrow
down the cause of the issue more efficiently, please refer to the following
steps to perform a Clean Boot and restart the computer in Safe Mode to see
if the issue still continues.

Step 1: Perform a Clean Boot

1. Click "Start", go to "Run", and type "msconfig" in the open box to start
the System Configuration Utility.

2. Click the "Services" tab, check the "Hide All Microsoft Services" box
and click Disable All (if it is not gray).

3. Click the "Startup" tab, click "Disable All" and click "OK".

4. Restart your computer. When the "System Configuration Utility" window
appears, please check the box and click "OK".

Step 2: Reboot to Safe Mode

1. Restart your computer and start pressing the F8 key on your keyboard. On
a computer that is configured for booting to multiple Operating Systems,
you can press the F8 key when you see the boot menu.

2. When the Windows Advanced Options menu appears, select Safe Mode, and
then press Enter.

3. Log onto Windows by using the Administrator account or any user account
with the Administrator privileges.

Please note: In Safe Mode, your system display and desktop will look and
perform differently than in Normal Mode.

Meanwhile, to analyze the issue further, please download and run
MPSRPT_SETUPPerf.EXE on the problematic server to collect more information.

Download: Microsoft Product Support's Reporting Tools
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=cebf3c7c-7ca5-408f-
88b7-f9c79b7306c0&displaylang=en
For more usage, please check the file MPSRPT_SetupPerf_Readme.txt in the
above link.

Please also capture the screenshot of the Windows Explorer, Disk Management
console, and Computer Management\Shared node, and you may send all the logs
and screenshot to tfwst@microsoft.com

Thanks for the co-operation.

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support

 

Hello Paul,

I'd like to check how things are going. Did you have the chance to try the
troubleshooting steps? If you have any other questions, please do not
hesitate to let me know. I look forward to your further updates.

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support

 

Hi David,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you, I have been waiting for a chance
to down the server to perform the steps you posted.

Things have changed. Yesterday users reported that services provided by this
server were slow, and a re-boot was scheduled overnight.

Today I am unable to access F: as stated before. There are a number of
shares against the F: drive, which are no longer available on the server,
though there are no 2511 events in the event log along the lines of "unable
to create the share xxx because the directory xxx no longer exists" as I
would expect.

It looks like the problem I was trying to avoid has hit before I could find
the cause.

I edited the registry to change all F: shares to Y: and restarted the Server
service. All my shares are back.

As the symptoms are no longer being observed, is there any point to
collecting the data in Safe Mode?

Paul

"David Shen [MSFT]" <v-dashen@online.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:xsVCthKxJHA.6056@TK2MSFTNGHUB02.phx.gbl...
> Hello Paul,
>
> I'd like to check how things are going. Did you have the chance to try the
> troubleshooting steps? If you have any other questions, please do not
> hesitate to let me know. I look forward to your further updates.
>
> David Shen
> Microsoft Online Technical Support
>

 

Hello Paul,

Thanks for the reply.

For your further concern on collecting data in safe mode, you can run
MPSRPT_SETUPPerf.EXE on the problematic server to collect more information
for further analysis.

If possible, please capture the screenshot of the Windows Explorer, Disk
Management console, and Computer Management\Shared node, and you may send
all the logs and screenshot to tfwst@microsoft.com

Thanks for the co-operation.

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support

 

Hello Paul,

I'd like to check how things are going. Did you have the chance to try the
troubleshooting steps? If you have any other questions, please do not
hesitate to let me know. I look forward to your further updates.

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support