2nd DrivePool not recognized WHS 2011

[papermaker]

I decided to set up two pools on my home server; one essentially for Media Center DVR recordings and one for everything else. However, my 2nd pool has never been recognized or operated properly; it shows up as "unknown" capacity and unknown used space with 0GB free space in the dashboard. If I go to the drivepool add-in page, it shows my 2nd pool (O:) with 5.20 TB free in a 7.28 TB pool; seems correct. 

When I try to set up folders in the dashboard using O:, I get errors (unexpected error 80040088). I was able to save DVR recordings to O via a mapped network drive from my desktop, so it was sort of working - but I wanted everything correct. I decided to move all the files from O over to H (my 1st pool), so I got another 4 TB drive, added it to H, and proceeded to move files. The video files all moved over without incident. Two of my O: Pool Drives (M: and N:)show completely empty now in explorer, but according to Drivepool they still contain 617 and 1000 GB of data. When I try to remove one (there is enough space remaining in the O: pool) , I get an "access is denied" error. 

Next, I tried removing DrivePool, with the idea that the files are then theoretically available via their physical drive location and I could find them and move or delete them. This made no difference at all other than eliminating the pool-based folder assignments on the dashboard. I reinstalled Drivepool and headed to the forum. I am about ready to format everything in sight but I am not sure I can easily reproduce all the "stranded" files (some are images of decommissioned machines, etc) - and it is not easy to tell exactly what is there since dashboard and explorer to not display the files. 

 

I also tried upgrading to 2.2.2.561, but no improvement. 

 

Any ideas ?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Assign a label to the O:\ drive and reboot the system.

 

See if that helps.

[papermaker]

Thanks, no luck. It is now named DrivePool2, but otherwise looks and acts the same. Still unknown space, still can't share the folders that are seen on O: or create new ones.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Okay.

 

So, other than on the dashboard, ti seems to work just fine, without any problems?

 

I'm assuming that you've rebooted the system at least once since this issue first appeared....

But could you grab the contents of "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows Server\Logs" from the server, and upload them... I'd say here, but to

[papermaker]

It "kind of" works ; as noted, I can't use the normal methods of creating folders and browsing is a problem. I should say "was"; I essentially force disconnected the drives from the O pool as "damaged", as it didn't look like there was any quick fix. The issue I am left with now is that most of the remaining files under "pool part" xyz are only owned by 2 different "unknown user aaaaaaaaaabbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbcccccccccccccccc" accounts , I assume accounts for Drive Pool. I have to go into the files as administrator and assign access rights. I'll have to brush up on my batch commands so I can buzz through the affected files - but, as advertised it does not look like I lost anything. 

I would be curious to know what I did to get DrivePool so thoroughly confused. 

 

Thanks for your input!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

If you're seeing an unknown user for the owner (probably starts with "SID-", or just "S-"), then the account that owned it got deleted, or ... possibly a file system issue.

 

To emphasize, StableBit DrivePool does not use any custom accounts. The driver runs as a kernel level driver, so it requires and is not affected by user permissions. The service runs in the system account, so it should always have access the disks (you can change this, but because so many things run in the system account, we HIGHLY recommend against this)

 

Check the event viewer, the "system" section for disk related errors. If you're seeing a lot for one or more disks, then you may have a problem here.

 

I would highly recommend running a chkdsk pass on all of the disks in the "O:\" Pool, to make sure there are no issues ("chkdsk x: /r" would be best, where "x:" is the drive letter of the disks in question).

After doing that, it may help.

 

 

Worst case, reset the permissions for the entire pool, by doing so on the constituent disks. 

Do this on the root of each disk in the "problem" pool.

http://www.techfleece.com/2011/05/15/how-to-take-ownership-of-files-or-folders-or-an-entire-hard-drive/

Also, change the permissions to ... well, match what you see here, as well (administrators and system with full control, and users and authenticated users with read+list+execute priviledges). 

In both options use the "replace" option, to force inheritance to ALL files and folders. 

 

Once you've done this, hopefully, the pool should return to working properly.

[papermaker]

Thanks; I had already checked the disks, no issues. Nothing related in the event log. Thanks also for the link to GUI permissions at disk level, I had not gone deep enough in the button maze yet. The problem disks were set to system only, I gave them back to the administrator and I should be OK. Still not sure how this happened, I am the only administrator and the other DrivePool (and non-pooled drives) were fine. 

[Christopher (Drashna)]

If I had to guess at why, probably file system damage.

You should definitely run a chkdsk pass of the disks affected this way, just in case.