Windows 7 Disk Management: spanned volume won't re-integrate missingdisk

  • Thread starter Thread starter Yousuf Khan
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Yousuf Khan

A friend of mine has a desktop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. In it,
there is a 1TB spanned volume consisting of 3 disks: (1) 200GB, (2)
300GB, & (3) 500GB. The middle disk, disk #2, suffered a temporary
communications failure, and disappeared from the volume all of a sudden.
After the reboot, the missing disk came back, SMART status shows it as
healthy (according to Hard Disk Sentinel, though it does mention that
there was a large number of communications errors on it, i.e. 64227
times). I went into Disk Management, but the volume still shows failed.
I attempted to reactivate the disks in the volume, but it didn't work. I
then attempted to go into the command-line utility, diskpart, and ran
the following command:

DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 186 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 279 GB 279 GB
Disk 2 Online 465 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 3 Online 931 GB 0 B
Disk 4 Online 111 GB 0 B
Disk M0 Missing 0 B 0 B *

As you can see, it shows one disk missing in the Dynamic volume, M0, but
that is supposed to be the same disk as Disk 1. Disk 0, 1, and 2
together made up the dynamic volume, but it's not recognizing Disk 1 as
part of the volume, and so it lists M0 as a missing disk in the volume.

While in diskpart, I attempted to "select disk M0" and "online disk",
and that didn't work. Then I tried to do the same with operation on Disk
1, it said that it was already online. How do I get it to recognize Disk
1 as the previously missing disk?
 
In comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware.storage Yousuf Khan said:
A friend of mine has a desktop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. In it,
there is a 1TB spanned volume consisting of 3 disks: (1) 200GB, (2)
300GB, & (3) 500GB. The middle disk, disk #2, suffered a temporary
communications failure, and disappeared from the volume all of a sudden.
After the reboot, the missing disk came back, SMART status shows it as
healthy (according to Hard Disk Sentinel, though it does mention that
there was a large number of communications errors on it, i.e. 64227
times). I went into Disk Management, but the volume still shows failed.
I attempted to reactivate the disks in the volume, but it didn't work. I
then attempted to go into the command-line utility, diskpart, and ran
the following command:
Click to expand...
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 186 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 279 GB 279 GB
Disk 2 Online 465 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 3 Online 931 GB 0 B
Disk 4 Online 111 GB 0 B
Disk M0 Missing 0 B 0 B *
Click to expand...
As you can see, it shows one disk missing in the Dynamic volume, M0, but
that is supposed to be the same disk as Disk 1. Disk 0, 1, and 2
together made up the dynamic volume, but it's not recognizing Disk 1 as
part of the volume, and so it lists M0 as a missing disk in the volume.
Click to expand...
While in diskpart, I attempted to "select disk M0" and "online disk",
and that didn't work. Then I tried to do the same with operation on Disk
1, it said that it was already online. How do I get it to recognize Disk
1 as the previously missing disk?
Click to expand...

That is one reason not to trust Microsoft: Their engineering is still
3rd rated. What any sane RAID controller would have done here is
fail the whole array, but keep it assembled and allow you to
start it again when all drives are visible. What MS seems to have done
is kick the failed disk from the array, which does not make any sense
at all on non-redundant RAID arrays.

Your best bet is to find some tool that can assemble the spanned array
and works past MS stupidity.

That said: Any type of non-redundant RAID is only suitable as
temporary storage of non-critical data. In that case it can just
be re-created when something like this happens.

Arno
 
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 186 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 279 GB 279 GB
Disk 2 Online 465 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 3 Online 931 GB 0 B
Disk 4 Online 111 GB 0 B
Disk M0 Missing 0 B 0 B *
Click to expand...

Disk 1 appears to have no partitions. That's why its free space
matches its size.

Try the following commands:

select disk=1
detail disk
list volume
select volume=x
detail volume

A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Use a disc editor to examine Disk 1.

Here are several freeware editors:

DMDE (DM Disk Editor and Data Recovery):
http://softdm.com/download.html

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd

Roadkil's Sector Editor:
http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P24/Sector Editor

I'd examine sector 0 on Disk 0 and Disk 2, plus the next few sectors,
and then compare them against Disk 1. I don't know anything about
dynamic volumes, but AFAIK each drive must store metadata that
identify all the other drives in the set.

- Franc Zabkar
 
Yousuf said:
A friend of mine has a desktop running Windows 7 Ultimate x64. In it,
there is a 1TB spanned volume consisting of 3 disks: (1) 200GB, (2)
300GB, & (3) 500GB. The middle disk, disk #2, suffered a temporary
communications failure, and disappeared from the volume all of a sudden.
After the reboot, the missing disk came back, SMART status shows it as
healthy (according to Hard Disk Sentinel, though it does mention that
there was a large number of communications errors on it, i.e. 64227
times). I went into Disk Management, but the volume still shows failed.
I attempted to reactivate the disks in the volume, but it didn't work. I
then attempted to go into the command-line utility, diskpart, and ran
the following command:

DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 186 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 279 GB 279 GB
Disk 2 Online 465 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 3 Online 931 GB 0 B
Disk 4 Online 111 GB 0 B
Disk M0 Missing 0 B 0 B *

As you can see, it shows one disk missing in the Dynamic volume, M0, but
that is supposed to be the same disk as Disk 1. Disk 0, 1, and 2
together made up the dynamic volume, but it's not recognizing Disk 1 as
part of the volume, and so it lists M0 as a missing disk in the volume.

While in diskpart, I attempted to "select disk M0" and "online disk",
and that didn't work. Then I tried to do the same with operation on Disk
1, it said that it was already online. How do I get it to recognize Disk
1 as the previously missing disk?
Click to expand...

The dynamic disk database is duplicated across all (dynamic) disks. The question
would be, what happened to the dynamic disk database on the orphan disk ?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737048(WS.10).aspx

"Windows Server 2003 can repair a corrupted database on
one dynamic disk by using the database on another dynamic disk."

That's what I would have expected, based on the design intent of
having the database duplicated.

The orphan disk has two pieces of info. The MBR is specially marked,
to indicate the dynamic nature. Try a copy of PTEDIT32, and examine
what it shows on each drive. There should be something in the
MBR to indicate the disk is a dynamic disk. If the MBR was overwritten,
and the MBR on the orphan no longer indicates Dynamic, that's going
to "shoot you in the foot" right there. Not a leg to stand on.
A person could create that kind of damage, by using something like
TestDisk (which has an option to rewrite the MBR).

(Run as Administrator in Windows 7...)
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip

(Partition type reference. To decode values seen in PTEDIT32)
http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html

Once a disk MBR is marked dynamic, then that "1MB thing" near the
end of the disk, has to be intact.

It's possible the dynamic database, uses info like hardware serial numbers,
or something equally reliable, to allow re-importing something that
got damaged. There's bound to be a way to fix this.

I tried to find tools from this list, on my WinXP Pro, but
there's really nothing (except diskpart perhaps). And I'm not even
sure anything in diskpart is appropriate. There is a "repair"
command, but it's for something else.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737610

*******

I built a Windows 7 VM, put a copy of Windows on the first virual
disk. Made two more virtual disks. Caused both of the empty virtual
disks to be Dynamic. Created a Spanned Volume across both of them.
(Two 16GB physical disks, become 32GB spanned E:). Shut down,
removed one disk of the spanned set, from the VM. Started Windows 7
again. In Disk Management, it shows the disconnected disk, and
shows it as "Missing". Right-clicking, there is a menu which
includes "reactivate". And in the help, some mention of "offline"
and "online" status.

OK, so shut down Windows 7 again, connect up the second disk of the
spanned set. Reboot Windows. And, I didn't even need that "Reactivate"
item. The second disk was automatically detected as present, and
E: came back up.

This exercise doesn't prove much, expect to suggest the orphan disk
lost something in its travels. Either the MBR is busted.
Or the 1 megabyte database has gone missing. The database, is supposed
to be the same on all disks. If you had five disk, split into a two
disk span set, and a three disk RAID5, the database file on each
disk is supposed to contain all of the info for the five disks. So
not only is the span recorded, so is the RAID5, and the same database
is supposed to be present on all the disks.

If you move the Dynamic Disk set to another computer, there's some
deal about "Foreign" and "Import". But if you start that kind of
thing (moving Dynamic Disks to another computer), that just
complicates the outcomes. If, as an amateur, I was trying to
repair it, the last thing I'd do is move the disks to another
computer (for fear of losing something, or say, the foreign import
overwriting something). Maybe "Foreign" and "Import" only affects
the local registry, but I don't know that for sure.

Just a guess,
Paul
 
Disk 1 appears to have no partitions. That's why its free space
matches its size.

Try the following commands:

select disk=1
detail disk
list volume
select volume=x
detail volume

A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll give that one a shot when I next get to his place.
Use a disc editor to examine Disk 1.

Here are several freeware editors:

DMDE (DM Disk Editor and Data Recovery):
http://softdm.com/download.html

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd

Roadkil's Sector Editor:
http://www.roadkil.net/program.php/P24/Sector Editor

I'd examine sector 0 on Disk 0 and Disk 2, plus the next few sectors,
and then compare them against Disk 1. I don't know anything about
dynamic volumes, but AFAIK each drive must store metadata that
identify all the other drives in the set.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm hoping I'm not going to have to go that route. I'm hoping that
there's just some simple combination of commands in diskpart that can do
it for me. I know enough about the basics of diskpart, but some of the
more esoteric commands might be outside of my knowledge. But I don't
want to start using diskpart commands thinking they mean one thing, and
end up meaning something else.

Yousuf Khan
 
That is one reason not to trust Microsoft: Their engineering is still
3rd rated. What any sane RAID controller would have done here is
fail the whole array, but keep it assembled and allow you to
start it again when all drives are visible. What MS seems to have done
is kick the failed disk from the array, which does not make any sense
at all on non-redundant RAID arrays.

Your best bet is to find some tool that can assemble the spanned array
and works past MS stupidity.
Click to expand...

I've posted this same question on Microsoft Technet, and so far not a
single response yet. It may be a very difficult case.
That said: Any type of non-redundant RAID is only suitable as
temporary storage of non-critical data. In that case it can just
be re-created when something like this happens.
Click to expand...

It's a home PC, we paid the extra price for the Win7 Ultimate for
features such as this. Symantec's Volume Manager is a bit too pricey for
this setting.

When I was running Solaris systems, I used to use the included Solaris
RAID software for quick and easy spanning and other functions when the
costs prohibited buying a Symantec license for such a small job. The
Solaris software was competent, if a bit less user-friendly or as fast
as Symantec's, but you could trust it to work right.

Yousuf Khan
 
I built a Windows 7 VM, put a copy of Windows on the first virual
disk. Made two more virtual disks. Caused both of the empty virtual
disks to be Dynamic. Created a Spanned Volume across both of them.
(Two 16GB physical disks, become 32GB spanned E:). Shut down,
removed one disk of the spanned set, from the VM. Started Windows 7
again. In Disk Management, it shows the disconnected disk, and
shows it as "Missing". Right-clicking, there is a menu which
includes "reactivate". And in the help, some mention of "offline"
and "online" status.

OK, so shut down Windows 7 again, connect up the second disk of the
spanned set. Reboot Windows. And, I didn't even need that "Reactivate"
item. The second disk was automatically detected as present, and
E: came back up.

This exercise doesn't prove much, expect to suggest the orphan disk
lost something in its travels. Either the MBR is busted.
Or the 1 megabyte database has gone missing. The database, is supposed
to be the same on all disks. If you had five disk, split into a two
disk span set, and a three disk RAID5, the database file on each
disk is supposed to contain all of the info for the five disks. So
not only is the span recorded, so is the RAID5, and the same database
is supposed to be present on all the disks.
Click to expand...

Well, this is interesting, then I guess I am going to have to go in with
a disk editor on this thing afterall. As Frank Z. noted, the disk is
showing empty right now, when it should show that it is part of a
dynamic volume.
If you move the Dynamic Disk set to another computer, there's some
deal about "Foreign" and "Import". But if you start that kind of
thing (moving Dynamic Disks to another computer), that just
complicates the outcomes. If, as an amateur, I was trying to
repair it, the last thing I'd do is move the disks to another
computer (for fear of losing something, or say, the foreign import
overwriting something). Maybe "Foreign" and "Import" only affects
the local registry, but I don't know that for sure.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I had seen some mention of importing disks, but I could not find
the information to indicate how to do it.

Yousuf Khan
 
Disk 1 appears to have no partitions. That's why its free space

matches its size.



Try the following commands:



select disk=1

detail disk
Click to expand...

DISKPART> detail disk

Maxtor 6L300R0 ATA Device
Disk ID: 49721FF3
Type : ATA
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 1
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1401)#ATA(C00T01L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

There are no volumes.
list volume
Click to expand...

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 Spanned 931 GB Failed
Volume 1 G DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 2 E Seag 1TB Da NTFS Partition 736 GB Healthy
Volume 3 D Seag 1TB Bo NTFS Partition 195 GB Healthy System
Volume 4 H System Rese NTFS Partition 100 MB Healthy
Volume 5 C SanDisk SSD NTFS Partition 111 GB Healthy Boot
select volume=x

detail volume
Click to expand...

DISKPART> detail volume

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 465 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 2 Online 186 GB 0 B *
Disk M0 Missing 0 B 0 B *

Read-only : No
Hidden : No
No Default Drive Letter: No
Shadow Copy : No
Offline : No
BitLocker Encrypted : No
Installable : No

Virtual Disk Service error:
The object is in failed status.
Use a disc editor to examine Disk 1.
Click to expand...

I`ll download those later and post the results later.

Yousuf Khan
 
Nothing I can say but ditto. These schemes should be as independent of
the OS as possible. In fact, make that as independent of the PC hardware
as possible. I was looking at a Datoptic port multipier
http://www.datoptic.com/esata-hardware-raid-controller-spm394.html
Click to expand...

I like the idea of it being driverless, so when my mobo fails, I'm not
screwed. In fact, if I use one, I'd probably buy a second eventually
just to have handy in the event the one I'm using croaks.

MS has been trying to abstract files as their OSs have progressed.
"Docuements" was bad enough, but "virtual store" is over the top. Stop
hiding the damn files!
 
I've posted this same question on Microsoft Technet, and so far not a
single response yet. It may be a very difficult case.
Click to expand...

Just my point: This should be easy. On Linux mdadm,
mdadm --assemble --force <array name/uuid/component list/etc.>
does the trick. Easy to find, easy to use. May cause
data-corruption, but that is unavoidable when a disk
drops out of a non-redundant array without warning.

The other thing I found out recently when I wanted some
Win7 redundancy is that you cannot boot from a dynamic disk.
What the hell is the use of software RAID if you cannot
use it for the most important drive???
It's a home PC, we paid the extra price for the Win7 Ultimate for
features such as this. Symantec's Volume Manager is a bit too pricey for
this setting.
Click to expand...
When I was running Solaris systems, I used to use the included Solaris
RAID software for quick and easy spanning and other functions when the
costs prohibited buying a Symantec license for such a small job. The
Solaris software was competent, if a bit less user-friendly or as fast
as Symantec's, but you could trust it to work right.
Click to expand...

Well, yes. Same with Linux mdadm (except the "pricey").
But with a three disk spanned array, you have about three
times the chance of something like this happening compared
to one disk. But you are right, ordinarily this should
be easy to repair and any possible corruption should be
limited to files being written at the time. Apparently
MS "upgraded" this to a real problem.

Arno
 
miso said:
Nothing I can say but ditto. These schemes should be as independent of
the OS as possible.
Click to expand...

If you mean "as independent of the concrete OS instance as possible",
I agree. On Linux I can recover a RAID array with any other not
too old Linux recovery CD, or on any other Linux PC, over any
other interface I like as long as I can get enough of the original
disks attached in some way so that the OS sees them.

OS dependency per se is not the issue, but being tied to a
specific PC is just stupid. And "stupid" is what I have
come to expect of MS. These people just do not get it and
consistently implement bad choices, because they think they
are so great that they do not need to look at what other
people have done. Organizational Dunning-Krueger effect.
In fact, make that as independent of the PC hardware
as possible. I was looking at a Datoptic port multipier
Click to expand...
I like the idea of it being driverless, so when my mobo fails, I'm not
screwed. In fact, if I use one, I'd probably buy a second eventually
just to have handy in the event the one I'm using croaks.
Click to expand...

Get that second one with the first one and make sure you can
actually recover this way. From my personal experience,
hardware RAID implementations can be very, very stupid.
And make sure you can do DISK SMART monitoring over this
thing so you have some early warning if a disk goes bad.
MS has been trying to abstract files as their OSs have progressed.
"Docuements" was bad enough, but "virtual store" is over the top. Stop
hiding the damn files!
Click to expand...

MS wants an easy experience for their users. Nothing wrong
with that, except that computing cannot be made easy today. So
they implement problems waiting to happen instead that screw
the user once some tiny thing works not quite as MS expected
it to work. Which happens att the tome with today's PCs, also
because MS engineering quality is still pretty bad.

Arno
 
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 186 GB 0 B *
Disk 1 Online 279 GB 279 GB
Disk 2 Online 465 GB 1024 KB
Disk M0 Missing 0 B 0 B *
Click to expand...
DISKPART> detail volume

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 465 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 2 Online 186 GB 0 B *
Disk M0 Missing 0 B 0 B *
Click to expand...

How is it that Disks 0 and 2 appear to have swapped places? Does it
matter?

- Franc Zabkar
 
If you mean "as independent of the concrete OS instance as possible",
I agree. On Linux I can recover a RAID array with any other not
too old Linux recovery CD, or on any other Linux PC, over any
other interface I like as long as I can get enough of the original
disks attached in some way so that the OS sees them.

OS dependency per se is not the issue, but being tied to a
specific PC is just stupid. And "stupid" is what I have
come to expect of MS. These people just do not get it and
consistently implement bad choices, because they think they
are so great that they do not need to look at what other
people have done. Organizational Dunning-Krueger effect.



Get that second one with the first one and make sure you can
actually recover this way. From my personal experience,
hardware RAID implementations can be very, very stupid.
And make sure you can do DISK SMART monitoring over this
thing so you have some early warning if a disk goes bad.


MS wants an easy experience for their users. Nothing wrong
with that, except that computing cannot be made easy today. So
they implement problems waiting to happen instead that screw
the user once some tiny thing works not quite as MS expected
it to work. Which happens att the tome with today's PCs, also
because MS engineering quality is still pretty bad.

Arno
Click to expand...

There is a thread on Tom's Hardware. The poster had 20 drives using 4 of
those boxes. He said he can rebuild on the fly. I'm not ruling out going
Drobo or other COTS solution. But I have more confidence in a system
that I build myself because I understand it.

The port multiplier in theory is OS independent. However, you do need to
be able to talk SATA, so the mobo needs a driver. But this is borderline
pedantic.

Not only does MS hide the damn files, but in win7, they made searching
take a giant leap backwards. I use that Voidtool "everything" program.
It is so good, I don't bother indexing.
 
It's a home PC, we paid the extra price for the Win7 Ultimate for
features such as this. Symantec's Volume Manager is a bit too pricey for
this setting.
Click to expand...

I realize you're well beyond the shopping phase, but I would have
recommended DriveBender <http://www.drivebender.com/> as an alternative to
MS drive spanning. I'm currently running it on a couple of systems and
haven't had any problems yet.

One system consists of 15 physical drives grouped as a single 28TB logical
volume, and the second system has 9 physical drives grouped as a single 13TB
volume. If a drive is removed from the pool, all data on all drives remains
readable.
 
miso said:
There is a thread on Tom's Hardware. The poster had 20 drives using 4 of
those boxes. He said he can rebuild on the fly. I'm not ruling out going
Drobo or other COTS solution. But I have more confidence in a system
that I build myself because I understand it.
Click to expand...

I agree. I just advise toget that spare controller and make
sure swapping it out works as expected.
The port multiplier in theory is OS independent. However, you do need to
be able to talk SATA, so the mobo needs a driver. But this is borderline
pedantic.
Click to expand...

Ah, sorry. What I meant is that you are hardware dependent in
the sense that you are dependent on this specific controller
type. As long as you have a spare, you can recover the array
from a broken controller on any other hardware. But well
implemented software RAID is not slower or less reliable and
does away with the need for any spare hardware. If you have
that spare controller, (and it being driverless is definitely
a huge advantage!), the difference is small. If you do not
have it and then find out that it is out of production or
otherwise hard to get when your main controller fails, the
difference is huge...
Not only does MS hide the damn files, but in win7, they made searching
take a giant leap backwards. I use that Voidtool "everything" program.
It is so good, I don't bother indexing.
Click to expand...

Indexing is another of these broken "features". On my laptop
it made everything choppy until I turned it off. Never
needed it anyways, I know where I keep stuff.

Arno
 
The dynamic disk database is duplicated across all (dynamic) disks. The
question
would be, what happened to the dynamic disk database on the orphan disk ?

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737048(WS.10).aspx

"Windows Server 2003 can repair a corrupted database on
one dynamic disk by using the database on another dynamic disk."

That's what I would have expected, based on the design intent of
having the database duplicated.

The orphan disk has two pieces of info. The MBR is specially marked,
to indicate the dynamic nature. Try a copy of PTEDIT32, and examine
what it shows on each drive. There should be something in the
MBR to indicate the disk is a dynamic disk. If the MBR was overwritten,
and the MBR on the orphan no longer indicates Dynamic, that's going
to "shoot you in the foot" right there. Not a leg to stand on.
A person could create that kind of damage, by using something like
TestDisk (which has an option to rewrite the MBR).

(Run as Administrator in Windows 7...)
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip


(Partition type reference. To decode values seen in PTEDIT32)
http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html

Once a disk MBR is marked dynamic, then that "1MB thing" near the
end of the disk, has to be intact.

It's possible the dynamic database, uses info like hardware serial numbers,
or something equally reliable, to allow re-importing something that
got damaged. There's bound to be a way to fix this.

I tried to find tools from this list, on my WinXP Pro, but
there's really nothing (except diskpart perhaps). And I'm not even
sure anything in diskpart is appropriate. There is a "repair"
command, but it's for something else.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc737610
Click to expand...

Okay, PTEdit worked!!! The partition table on this disk was showing Type
0 "empty", so I used Ptedit to turn them into Type 42 (Dynamic Disk). I
also had to fill in the remaining fields in that partition table by
hand: Starting Cylinder/Head/Sector = all zeros; Ending Cyl/Head/Sector
= 1023/254/63; Sectors Before = zero; Sectors End = Total Sectors -
2111. I found these other parameters out by comparing them to the other
disks in the dynamic volume. After doing all of that, I just rebooted,
and the volume came roaring back to life all on its own after the
reboot. Ran a chkdsk, it found no problems with the structure of the
filesystem. Checked several of the files on the disk, they all seemed to
have proper integrity. So it was just the partition table that was hosed
and nothing else!

Yousuf Khan
 
One system consists of 15 physical drives grouped as a single 28TB logical
volume, and the second system has 9 physical drives grouped as a single 13TB
volume.
Click to expand...


Wow! You have *big* systems. Are these home systems or are they used
in a business somewhere?
 
I realize you're well beyond the shopping phase, but I would have
recommended DriveBender<http://www.drivebender.com/> as an alternative to
MS drive spanning. I'm currently running it on a couple of systems and
haven't had any problems yet.

One system consists of 15 physical drives grouped as a single 28TB logical
volume, and the second system has 9 physical drives grouped as a single 13TB
volume. If a drive is removed from the pool, all data on all drives remains
readable.
Click to expand...

Are these all simple spans, or does this software also do software
RAID-5 or other RAID's?

Yousuf Khan
 
Yousuf said:
Okay, PTEdit worked!!! The partition table on this disk was showing Type
0 "empty", so I used Ptedit to turn them into Type 42 (Dynamic Disk). I
also had to fill in the remaining fields in that partition table by
hand: Starting Cylinder/Head/Sector = all zeros; Ending Cyl/Head/Sector
= 1023/254/63; Sectors Before = zero; Sectors End = Total Sectors -
2111. I found these other parameters out by comparing them to the other
disks in the dynamic volume. After doing all of that, I just rebooted,
and the volume came roaring back to life all on its own after the
reboot. Ran a chkdsk, it found no problems with the structure of the
filesystem. Checked several of the files on the disk, they all seemed to
have proper integrity. So it was just the partition table that was hosed
and nothing else!

Yousuf Khan
Click to expand...

Good catch!

Now, what erased the MBR ???

Paul
 
Good catch!
Ditto.

Now, what erased the MBR ???
Click to expand...

I suspect that the user accepted Windows' invitation to initialise the
drive. Many users do this without realising that "initialisation" is
data destructive, probably because the term sounds innocuous.

- Franc Zabkar
 
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