GPT Protective Partition?

[marko]

Good afternoon,

 

Another potential DriveBender convert here.

 

Last week, I installed the DrivePool trial and all was good. However, the pool keeps disappearing, and when I check in the Windows Disk Management tool, the pooled drive, which should be around 10Tb is shown as being a 2Tb drive that is inaccesible, and flagged as being "Healthy (GPT Protective Partition)"

 

If I reboot, the drive returns, but not for long...

 

Windows 8.1

Drives have no Windows drive letter assigned

Drive Bender is still installed.

 

Any ideas why I am getting this issue?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

To clarify, in Disk Management, the Pool drive shows up as a 2048GB drive regardless of the actual size of the pool. This is an artifact of how the driver works. 

 

However, if you check the top of the window, you will notice that it does show up as the correct size (both free space and capacity), and in Explorer. 

 

 

As for the Pool disappearing, that's definitely not normal behavior.

When this happens, do any of the disks in the pool disappear as well? 

Also, how are the pooled drives connected (USB, SATA, eSATA, and what controller card if sata)?

 

 

Also, are you using any antivirus, backup or disk tools on the system?

And could you get the results of this: 

 

 

Additionally, if this is happening frequently, could you enable file system logging and reproduce (or wait for it to happen):

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

 

 

Also, does this seem to be happening after specific actions or tasks take place?

[marko]

Thank you for replying...

 

 

To clarify, in Disk Management, the Pool drive shows up as a 2048GB drive regardless of the actual size of the pool. This is an artifact of how the driver works. 

 

However, if you check the top of the window, you will notice that it does show up as the correct size (both free space and capacity), and in Explorer. 

Yes. I see that. Though when it drops into this "GPT Protective Partition", All details at the top of the window are gone. No drive letter, no label, (I'm pretty sure there's no layout, type or file system info either, and status reports "Healthy (GPT Protective Partition)"

 

 

As for the Pool disappearing, that's definitely not normal behavior.

When this happens, do any of the disks in the pool disappear as well? 

Also, how are the pooled drives connected (USB, SATA, eSATA, and what controller card if sata)?

 

 

Also, are you using any antivirus, backup or disk tools on the system?

Disks do not disappear, no. None of the five disks in the pool have a Windows drive letter. I know they are not disappearing because the same five drives are also in a Drive Bender pool. Stablebit is using the free space on those five drives for the testing pool.

I appreciate that this is not typical usage, but in my simple mind, the theory's good? . This morning, I created a second pool using free space of two local drives I use for backups. Drive Bender has nothing to do with these.

 

The five pooled drives are in an external enclosure (Addonics) and are connected to the PC in JBOD mode, from a port multiplier on the Addonics case, to the PC, via USB3.

For antivirus protection, I use NOD32, just the AV part, I passed on the Internet Security option.

For backup, Macrium Reflect takes an incremental backup of "C:\" each night.

Goodsynch 9 backs up the various media types on these five pooled drives to the two local drives mentioned earlier.

 

 

Also, does this seem to be happening after specific actions or tasks take place?

It's happened twice so far. The first time I noticed it, the pool had just been 'there'. The only thing on it had been that "System Volume Information" folder. I hadn't got around to giving it a workout (Real Life™) for a couple of days, and when I went to have at it, it wasn't there. I rebooted and it came back. It made me nervous. So I just left it, again, with no data. I kept an eye on it for a day or so, then took my eye of it, and of course, it disappeared again. I have no idea when it's doing that. The PC is on 27/7.

 

I have created a more 'normal' pool and will see how that fares running alongside the other.

I have copied some random files and folders onto the 'five-drive pool' that's been going AWOL to see if that helps.

I will keep a closer eye on it from this morning to see if it happens again, if there's a clue to the trigger. If I don't see one, I'll enable logging.

 

I used to love all this stuff, but I'm getting on now, and just want things to work. I searched, then posted, hoping for a quick solution.... heyho

One other thing.... The plugin that lets me specify that I want the drives filled in a set order... I installed that, but...

The installer auto closed on me, and I thought it had failed, so ran it again. It prompted me that I must have v2.xx installed to use it. I did have, so I ran it again, got the same prompt. Think I went three times and gave up, but having given up, when I went to the "Balancer" tab, the ordered file placement thing was there. Maybe unrelated, but thought it might be worth mentioning, just in case...

 

I will let you know how this goes...

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Thank you for clarifying. 

 

 

Well, the Pool drive definitely shouldn't bet switching to the "GPT Protective Partition" ever. At best, we do mark it as read only when there is a missing disk. So I'm not sure why this is happening here (as it really *shouldn't* be). 

 

If you could get the logs from the system, that may help to identify why:

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_2.x_Log_Collection

 

Namely, just do steps #7-9 (uploading the logs to us).  If you're able to reproduce the issue, that would be awesome. But I suspect that it may not be.

 

 

Additionally, could you upgrade to the latest beta build, as there are number of A/V related fixes:

http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.660_x64_BETA.exe

 

If the issue continues to occur, could you try completely removing our software and reinstalling, just in case?

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Q3017479

 

 

 

 

 

And to clarify, this does appear to be a driver issues (or interaction).  The driver is what controls the pool, and this is where the issue appears to be.

 

 

And I have flagged this issue as critical for Alex (The Developer).

https://stablebit.com/Admin/IssueAnalysis/24929

[Christopher (Drashna)]

This issue should definitely be fixed in the beta version that I've linked.

 

And specifically, the issue may be because of Macron Reflect or ESET, as basically something is modifying the disk info (which is what is causing the issue).  The beta version makes the drive as read only to prevent this from happening (as this apparently happens for both GPT and MBR disks, when the issue occurs). 

[marko]

Thank you.

 

System has been up two days now since dropping 14Mb into the 5-drive pool and the 2-drive pool still empty, and so far, this has not reocurred, typical huh?

 

The only other software I have running (that I know of) that might access the drives at a low level are Samsung Magician and Hard Disk Sentinel.

 

 

This issue should definitely be fixed in the beta version that I've linked.

 

And specifically, the issue may be because of Macron Reflect or ESET, as basically something is modifying the disk info (which is what is causing the issue).  The beta version makes the drive as read only to prevent this from happening (as this apparently happens for both GPT and MBR disks, when the issue occurs). 

Interesting you should say that. Macrium Reflect takes an age to open. When I complained about it, (thread here, with screen shots), I was told I had corrupt GPT info, and was given a tool to run on the drives. This worked. Reflect now opened immediately, and the drives looked, well, normal now. Thing is, within days, I would be back at square one with funny looking partition info and Reflect taking an age to open. I did not persue the issue any further.

 

I have the beta downloaded, but not installed. Is it OK to install over the top of the existing, or do I need to uninstall first? I am hoping to have some time to stress the 5-drive pool a bit over this weekend...

 

-marko

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Ah, okay, In that case, Macrium Reflect is definitely doing something here. 

 

 

 

And yeah, the FixGPT utility could absolutely be the cause here, and we'll look into it. 

Specifically, the "fix" for the issue is that we've marked the drive as read only, so it tools like that can't affect our drive.  But getting this properly resolved would be best. 

 

 

 

And as for the beta, you should be able to just upgrade. it will require a reboot though.