Pool is unusable and I can't fix it

[Kelby]

I am running Stablebit Scanner and Drivepool on a home server that uses Windows Home Server 2011.  I have 9 drives in my pool.  One is a new WD Red Pro 6TB drive.  That new drive now has a SMART warning showing reallocated sectors.  So I'll get it replaced.  However, I am unable to remove the drive from the pool.  When I click on "remove drive from the pool," I get the error "Drive not removed from the pool The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error".  I get the same error even when I click the "Force damaged drive removal" option.

 

Also, my pool condition is at 50%, showing duplication warnings.  There are a number of files that show they could not be checked, duplicated or cleaned up due to an I/O device error.

 

In the meanwhile, I am unable to add files to the pool or delete files that are in the pool.

 

How can I remove the drive from the pool and regain control over my files in the pool?

[Christopher (Drashna)]

First, I'm sorry to hear about the disk issues, as that is never a pleasant experience. 

 

What version of StableBit Drivepool are you using? 
This definitely does make a difference, as there are some commands that can be useful here. 

 

Is the pool completely duplicated? 
If so, you should be able to use the "Duplicate data later" option here, as this skips duplicated data, and then reduplicates data later (normally, we move the data off to ensure that there are 2+ copies in the pool). 

 

If you're using StableBit DrivePool 2.X, please upgrade to the latest internal beta build? 

32-bit: http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.672_x86_BETA.exe

64-bit: http://dl.covecube.com/DrivePoolWindows/beta/download/StableBit.DrivePool_2.2.0.672_x64_BETA.exe

 

Once you're on this version, you can forcibly remove the disk from the pool.  

Open the disk and find the PoolPart name.  It should be "PoolPart.xxxxxx", and the important part is the "xxxxx" part. Copy this (rename the folder, select this part, and copy it). This folder is hidden by default, so you may need to enable "Show Hidden Files" to see it. 

Then open up an elevated (administrative) command prompt.  Run "dpcmd ignore-poolpart X: xxxxx"

Replace "x:" with the pool's drive letter, and use "xxxxx" from the "PoolPart.xxxxx" folder name. 

 

This will IMMEDIATELY drop the disk from the pool, and cause it to show up as a missing disk in the UI.  You can then remove it from the UI, and the pool will go back to working properly.  

 

However, the issue is that all of the content is still on the disk, and any unduplicated data is on the disk still.  You can copy the contents (that work) to the pool. And the contents of the Poolpart folder should match the layout of the pool (so you can just drag and drop the contents to the pool, skipping existing and problem files). 

 

 

 

 

Also, because this is more complicated, we can set up a remote support session with you, and assist with this.  If you okay with that, head to http://meetme.so/drashna_covecube and set up a time. 

[Kelby]

​Thank you. 

 

I was using version 1.3, so I uninstalled that version of DrivePool and installed the 64-bit beta build in your link.  It seems to have installed fine. 

 

Once it installed, I thought I would take another shot at removing the faulty drive the normal way.  For the moment, it seems to be cooperating, and is up to 24%.  I'll give that a few hours and see how it goes.

 

One significant possible issue is that I had several shared custom server folders on the pool.  My WHS 2011 dashboard shows them as "missing."  When I look at the pool drive folder in my server's file explorer, the custom folders still appear and it looks like the data is intact.  However, they do not show up when I look at my network shares from another computer on the network, and they show as "missing" in the server dashboard.  I tried clicking "recreate the missing folder," and it pointed to the correct location in the pool, but it says "an unexpected error has occurred 8004006E."  I hope the problem is simply that the folder is inaccessible while DrivePool it is trying to remove the faulty drive from the pool.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, glad to hear that the 2.X beta seems to be working much better in regards to removing the drive. 

 

 

If I had to guess, I suspect that StableBit DrivePool was unable to properly close access to some of the files, and that's what the errors were. 

 

 

As for the shares not showing up: 

• In the dashboard, this is normal. The pool drive was not present during startup, so it is not aware of it. A reboot will fix this issue
• For the network shares, this is unusual. As soon as the disk (or pool, in this case) is present, it should automatically start sharing the folders again.  However, worst case, rebooting should fix this issue as well.

In both cases, this is why we do recommend rebooting when upgrading on WHS2011. 

 

 

As for the error, this is likely because the share already exists, or at least records of it does.  Rebooting should resolve the issue. 

 

 

 

Worst case here, grab the WSS Troubleshooter utility, just in case. 

http://wiki.covecube.com/StableBit_DrivePool_Utilities

If rebooting doesn't fix the shares, then use the "Rebuild DrivePool shares" option and see if that does. 

[Kelby]

Rebooting seemed to fix most of the issues, and then using the "recreate missing folder" option took care of the rest.  Now I have to sort out whether my drive needs to be replaced or whether the sector remap took care of it.  I'll post some questions about that in the Scanner category.

 

Thanks!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Well, I'm glad to hear that you were able to get everything sorted!

[Kelby]

Thanks much for your help!

[Christopher (Drashna)]

You're very welcome!

 

Hopefully, you don't run into any more issues! But if you do, please let us know.

[Kelby]

The problems are back. 

 

I'm getting a duplication error again. When I look at the details, I have two files that say "file parts different," and five that say "the operation was cancelled."  I click "duplicate now," but keep getting the same errors.

[Christopher (Drashna)]

Do you know what file it was specifically?

 

As for the "operation was cancelled", there are a number of things that could cause this, such as it be locked after it starts to duplicate or balance the files.  Is anything actively using the pool? 

 

 

As for the file parts different, that can indicate an issue. However, this sometimes (very rarely) occurs with the thumbs.db file. 

 

 

And could you grab the logs from the system?

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

Just do steps #7-9

 

This way,  Ican take a look at the logs directly and better address the specific files/errors.