Cannot use W2K to access 2003 striped disk

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DES Services

2003 server crashed - okay - was demo anyway.
Putting on w2k and running a "VM" NT4.0 server in it's place - 2003 much more
than really needed for small office.
UNDER WIN2K:
Win2K can 'see' the disks but will not access them. disk 1 and disk 2 show as
available ... but the original partition information is ALSO showing - trying
to activate the disks and such will not work. the sizes are wrong.
put 2003 back on the system but it won't access these disks either. 300G
striped partition on 2 disks. the 500G partition came back without problems.
I could live w/out the 500G (A/V storage backup) and would prefer restoring
the 300G as it contains apps, libraries, research and stuff that had not been
backed up as this wasn't a planned event.

Under 2003 Server:
Disk 1 says it's BASIC @ 153.39G (although it was dynamic and striped @
153.26G). Disk 2 is correct with a 153.26G Striped partition. Disk 1 says
GPT Protective Partition. Can't find enough information on this new twist or
how to correct it when installing another OS. the other part of DISK1's
partition is THERE (shows the stripe, etc but not where it should be.

Okay - File Scavenger has been the lifesaver no matter how bad the NTFS disks
had messed up in the past w/little or NO lost data. now all the data is
completly corrupt. pictures of my kids before going to iraq are totally
messed up. I usually find something to help resolve this but ... nope, not
this time.

anyone have a solid resolution?

Ed
 
ADDENDUM: I originally made this post after several attempts to get these
disks back ONLINE. I was reading and looking for ways to recover the 300G
partition.

OKAY - the partition came back completely -

FYI: 4 those who use 2003 SERVER w/a similar problem ... checking back in the
records, 2003 server originally made the partition for my 300G stripe set.
win2k made the volume set for my 500G disk set.

NOW!!! after installing service pack ONE for 2003 server, it started and
found the disks, mounted them correctly and the data is completely intact.
(took 3 times to get the download right - checksum errors for some reason)

Geeezus - MS stickin it to us again!!! as long as SP1 is installed, File
Scavenger works perfectly. Obviously MS changed something - allowing 2003
server to do whatever the heck it wanted to w/out any warning. It's no wonder
their book sales are skyrocketing! BTW: I do have a shelf full of books JUST
for NT based systems. NT5 NTFS screws up NT4 NTFS (for good reason) ... for
the most part, NT5 NTFS, NT5.1 NTFS and NT5.2 NTFS get along. I would imagine
this change is dubbed NT6 NTFS? So far, UPGRADING is good - but don't try to
go backwards!!

In light of this new *SITUATION* ---> USER BEWARE!!

Ed

2003 server crashed - okay - was demo anyway. CPutting on w2k and running a
Click to expand...
"VM" NT4.0 server in it's place - 2003 much more
 
Ahhhhhhhh - a new twist in this mess. Okay, got the data transferred onto a
NTFS v5.1 partition - deleted the W2K3 partition, reverted both disks to basic
mode and changed ONE to MFT as the 2nd disk was MFT.

Both disks are suppose to be matched *BUT* Maxtor in their infinite wisdom
changed the sizing by 128Meg (onna replacement disk) so there is always a tail
when making a simple volume - that's minor. We WILL NEVER purchase MAXTOR
drives in the future because of their failure rate. Most drives have been
replaced by Hitachi (IBM Deskstar) and Seagate. NOTE: we're using ONE WD
Raptor 40G 10K RPM, SATA-1.5 (3 SATA-3.0 Hitachi) in one workstation, so far
it's been GREAT.

ANYWAY - back 2 business:
Recovering the 300 Gig disk set was paramount.

the kick is this ... one disk is 153.39G and the other is 153.26G. W2K now
reports 128.0G for EACH disk after W2K3 had removed info, etc. Now isn't this
just lovely. It is apparent W2K3 is writing erronious information because it
definitly isn't correct. MS has caused >MORE TROUBLE< now ... more 2 come!
 
Opps, dunno how I confused MAXTOR for IBM Deskstars - but, it happens. I
forgot I used the pair of 80G Maxtors for their greatest contribution -
DOORSTOPS!! That's another story.

Okay - actually ... there are FOUR IBM Deskstar drives (2) 250G/ata100 and (2)
160G/ata133.

A bit of a strech ... BIOS reports my two 160G drives correctly, using DOS 7.1
reports correctly, W2K DOS setup reports the disks correctly ... hang on ...
W2K *RUNNING SYSTEM*
->REFUSES<- to identify the disks correctly. Partition Magic reports disk
sizes correctly and when partitioned using PM, W2K sees them correctly. WAIT!
There's more. In spite of W2K finally seeing them correctly sized, DELETING
the partition to make a STRIPE set - WTF!! It's back to it's OLD TRICKS!
Only reporting the drives as 128G!! Okay, enough of this crap!

Went through every (to my knowledge) possible proceedure - chk'd HARDWARE -
BIOS settings, drive settings, cables, BIOS dating, etc. Using Hitachi Drive
Tools to INITIALIZE one disk 2C if that'd work - NOPE! Used 'MSDOS 7.1' to
fdisk the drives (it reported correct size) - NOPE! WIPED my SYSTEM disk and
reinstalled W2K not once but TWICE to see if something went wrong. NOPE!
There is NO reason WHY everything ELSE reported the correct disk size but W2K
ABSOLUTELY REFUSES!!

Doesn't matter WHAT service pack is applied - W2K plain, W2K SP2, W2K SP4 (all
startup disks). Hammering around for drivers for this board proved futile
because there are no additinal drivers for the IDE interface on this board for
W2K, WXP or NT4. Apparently since W2K3 server *CAN* identify the drives
correctly (along w/win95, win98 and NT4 Wkst/srvr) it falls back to W2K
drivers - after this feasco, W2K drivers **SUCK**!!

BOTTOM LINE: I've used W2K with no hardware issues in the past on this
machine. For some reason unknown I was forced to put the pair of drives on
another IDE interface to resolve this issue. This is not what I had wanted to
do and never had to do this in the past.

So, getting this problem resolved: (assuming) some part of the driver is not
agreeing with the hardware. That is about the best one would assume short of
digging into the OS, disassembling the driver(s) and dissecting the
compatability issue completely. NOT MY JOB - Gee, must be an MS thing.

This explains why there was problems recovering data from these drives and
getting them recognized by W2K. Something about W2K3 SP1 allowed the driver
to access the disk geometry and bypassed previously "normal" protocol.

Reader's Digest condensed version:
If you find your OS will not access drives AFTER using W2K3 SP1 and/or reports
weird sizes and leaves your data totally corrupt to the point Quetek's File
Scavenger cannot properly reassemble data, dig deeper. Be prepaired to do
some strange stuff. WHATEVER you do - DO NOT reformat or attempt to change
the partition(s) on the disk until you've exhausted all other options!
Recover your data FIRST!! Then screw around w/the disk(s) to see what you can
find.

In this particular case, re-installing W2K3 and applying SP1 resulted in the
recovery of the data which was immediately backed up.

THEN the process of elimination begins - in this case moving the drives to
another IDE adaptor (for me the move was to the RAID adaptor) this fixed my
problem - yours might be different. Chk around before assuming the worst.

Ed
 
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