CMC: How long should it take for a drive letter change on a RAID set to take effect?

[Ian R]

Hi

I'm running XP Pro SP2.

I have used Computer Management Console: Disk Management to alter drive
letters without a problem before.

However I recently used it to change the drive letter of a 500GB RAID1 set -
I select the drive letter I want and click OK but then just get the busy
hourglass and nothing changes.

The HDD light flashes once very few seconds and I've waited several minutes
but it still doesn't change.

With my non RAID drives the change is instant.

How long would you expect it to take on a RAID1 set?

Thanks for any info

Ian

 

[Michael Hawes]

Hi

I'm running XP Pro SP2.

I have used Computer Management Console: Disk Management to alter drive
letters without a problem before.

However I recently used it to change the drive letter of a 500GB RAID1
set - I select the drive letter I want and click OK but then just get the
busy hourglass and nothing changes.

The HDD light flashes once very few seconds and I've waited several
minutes but it still doesn't change.

With my non RAID drives the change is instant.

How long would you expect it to take on a RAID1 set?

Thanks for any info

Ian

Run CHKDSK /F on the array. If errors found, run it again until all OK.

Mike.

 

[Arno Wagner]

Hi

I'm running XP Pro SP2.

I have used Computer Management Console: Disk Management to alter drive
letters without a problem before.

However I recently used it to change the drive letter of a 500GB RAID1 set -
I select the drive letter I want and click OK but then just get the busy
hourglass and nothing changes.

The HDD light flashes once very few seconds and I've waited several minutes
but it still doesn't change.

With my non RAID drives the change is instant.

How long would you expect it to take on a RAID1 set?

Thanks for any info

Letter change should be near-instant.

I would expect that some software is using the array. It might be
some RAID monitor or it migt just be one or more open files.

Arno

 

[Ian R]

BIG SNIP
Run CHKDSK /F on the array. If errors found, run it again until all OK.

Mike.

Hi Mike

Thanks for the suggestion.

Unsurprisingly it needed to do most of its checking at boot up.

It took an absolute age to reach 29% so I decided to leave it running
overnight - dont quite know how long it took but at 500Gb it could have been
at least an hour or two!

Anyway after restarting I tried the letter change again and just thought I
should be more patient and wait it out. It must have been at least 20mins
or so before I got the prompt about the effect of changing drive letters and
after clicking OK to proceed it must have been at least 20-30mins before the
letter change took effect.

I guess it must be something to do with it being a RAID array and/or just
that its got lots of data on it...

Thanks again

Ian

 

[Ian R]

BIG SNIP>
Letter change should be near-instant.

I would expect that some software is using the array. It might be
some RAID monitor or it migt just be one or more open files.

Arno

Thanks Arno

I made sure that nothing else was running or accessing files on the RAID
drive. I only use it to store backups when I run my imaging software so
there was no need for anything to access it.

I cant help think it may be due to the size of the drives? Afterall it
takes long enough to format a drive or build an array of that size.

I'm still a RAID newbie so I can only speculate.

Thanks

Ian I^)

 

[Arno Wagner]

Thanks Arno

I made sure that nothing else was running or accessing files on the RAID
drive. I only use it to store backups when I run my imaging software so
there was no need for anything to access it.

I cant help think it may be due to the size of the drives? Afterall it
takes long enough to format a drive or build an array of that size.

The drive letter is not even stored on the drive, AFAIK.
Even if it is, it involves changes to one buyte on the disk.

Unles MS does a disk-check (for whatever reason and without
telling the user), there is no reason for this operation
to be dependent on the contents of the disk.

Arno

 

[Eric Gisin]

The drive letter is not even stored on the drive, AFAIK.
Even if it is, it involves changes to one buyte on the disk.

Unles MS does a disk-check (for whatever reason and without
telling the user), there is no reason for this operation
to be dependent on the contents of the disk.

****ing moron. It remounts the volume.