On some of our client’s machines, very occasionally we are seeing some of the machines missing the \Device\HarddiskVolume## devices that the volume manager is supposed to create. Why might this be, and can it be fixed? Thank you!
In which context does it happen??? For example, depending on manufacturer’s decision an external disk may present itself as either basic or removable one to the system. In the latter case a logical volume that corresponds to a physical partition is not going to get created - instead, drive letter (as well as volume ID in the form of a GUID) will correspond to a physical partition itself. Furthermore, if there are multiple partitions of removable disk Windows( unlike other OSes) is going to recognize only the first of them…
Anton Bassov
I wish I knew. All I have is the limited data the clients have provided me, and from that alone I cannot see anything out of the ordinary. For example, the problem occurs on the system with the disk shown below, an ordinary Maxtor local internal hard disk no different from any other I have encountered. There are simply no \Device\HarddiskVolume# devices created.
I understand this is normal for some removable or external drives (my USB drives behave this way) but not for local internal hard disks, right?
Thank you very much for any suggestions.
Description Disk drive
Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
Model Maxtor 6Y080M0
Bytes/Sector 512
Media Loaded Yes
Media Type Fixed hard disk media
Partitions 2
SCSI Bus 0
SCSI Logical Unit 0
SCSI Port 2
SCSI Target ID 1
Sectors/Track 63
Size 76.33 GB (81,956,689,920 bytes)
Total Cylinders 9,964
Total Sectors 160,071,660
Total Tracks 2,540,820
Tracks/Cylinder 255
Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
Partition Size 72.32 GB (77,654,836,224 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 32,256 bytes
Partition Disk #0, Partition #1
Partition Size 4.01 GB (4,301,821,440 bytes)
Partition Starting Offset 77,654,868,480 bytes
From the size of that second partition is may be a recovery or a Linux
partition (sometimes used for playing DVDs without booting Windows). Dump
the partition boot record and the extended partition boot record. You
should have one at sector zero, then use the entries in that partition table
to locate the various volumes and/or extended partition record(s).
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>I wish I knew. All I have is the limited data the clients have provided
>me, and from that alone I cannot see anything out of the ordinary. For
>example, the problem occurs on the system with the disk shown below, an
>ordinary Maxtor local internal hard disk no different from any other I have
>encountered. There are simply no \Device\HarddiskVolume# devices created.
>
> I understand this is normal for some removable or external drives (my USB
> drives behave this way) but not for local internal hard disks, right?
>
> Thank you very much for any suggestions.
>
> -----
>
> Description Disk drive
> Manufacturer (Standard disk drives)
> Model Maxtor 6Y080M0
> Bytes/Sector 512
> Media Loaded Yes
> Media Type Fixed hard disk media
> Partitions 2
> SCSI Bus 0
> SCSI Logical Unit 0
> SCSI Port 2
> SCSI Target ID 1
> Sectors/Track 63
> Size 76.33 GB (81,956,689,920 bytes)
> Total Cylinders 9,964
> Total Sectors 160,071,660
> Total Tracks 2,540,820
> Tracks/Cylinder 255
> Partition Disk #0, Partition #0
> Partition Size 72.32 GB (77,654,836,224 bytes)
> Partition Starting Offset 32,256 bytes
> Partition Disk #0, Partition #1
> Partition Size 4.01 GB (4,301,821,440 bytes)
> Partition Starting Offset 77,654,868,480 bytes
>
>
> There are simply no \Device\HarddiskVolume# devices created.
For either partition or just for one of them??? In other words, are you saying that partition is accessible; its FS is recognized; but no logical volume is mounted on it???
Anton Bassov
“For either partition or just for one of them??? In other words, are you saying that partition is accessible; its FS is recognized; but no logical volume is mounted on it???”
For either partition. That is exactly what I am saying. The partition is accessible, the filesystem is recognized, yes. It is in fact mounted as \DosDevices\C: , which points to \Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)… , the disk partition device directly, bypassing the usual \Device\HarddiskVolume1 level of indirection.
bump. Does anyone know why this is happening and whether we can do anything about it?
xxxxx@mvps.org wrote:
bump. Does anyone know why this is happening and whether we can do anything about it?
Because that machine is win2000?
- pa
> For either partition. That is exactly what I am saying. The partition is accessible, the filesystem is
recognized, yes. It is in fact mounted as \DosDevices\C: , which points to \Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)…
, the disk partition device directly, bypassing the usual \Device\HarddiskVolume1 level of indirection.
Looks like the hard disk became a removable media device due to some evil magic, i.e. some badly written software installed.
–
Maxim S. Shatskih
Windows DDK MVP
xxxxx@storagecraft.com
http://www.storagecraft.com
No, it is XP Pro SP2. Thanks –
> Looks like the hard disk became a removable media device
If it was the case Windows would not recognize more than one partition on the target disk. This is why I was asking whether BOTH partitions are accessible and recognized, and the OP says they are. Bizarre…
Anton Bassov
Anton, let me check back with the client to make sure that is true. Thank you for your help.
Anton, yes – both partitions are accessible. The other partition is mounted as \DosDevices\E:. What does this mean? Thank you –
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> Anton, yes – both partitions are accessible. The other partition is
> mounted as \DosDevices\E:. What does this mean? Thank you –
Ok, then it probably ain’t broken, so why fix it?
– pa
> Ok, then it probably ain’t broken, so why fix it
This is just an interesting situation in itself - indeed, how something like that may be possible???
Anton Bassov
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
>> Ok, then it probably ain’t broken, so why fix it
>
>
> This is just an interesting situation in itself - indeed, how something
> like that may be possible???
>
Perhaps because XP was installed as update over win2k installed as update
over NT over win95 … ?
–pa
“Ok, then it probably ain’t broken, so why fix it?”
We are interested in fixing this because it is a convenient way to keep track of the volumes on the system, we can keep data stored by the number HarddiskVolume#, rather than having to remember the full \Harddisk0\DP(1)0x7e00…
Are there any further ideas or suggestions for how this might have come about on this client’s machine and whether it might be able to be fixed?
Have you tried looking at the system in DeviceTree? The partition manager is
going to bail if it thinks the device is removable and you won’t get any
volume manager interaction, so I think Max is definitely on to something.
-scott
–
Scott Noone
Consulting Associate
OSR Open Systems Resources, Inc.
http://www.osronline.com
wrote in message news:xxxxx@ntdev…
> “Ok, then it probably ain’t broken, so why fix it?”
>
> We are interested in fixing this because it is a convenient way to keep
> track of the volumes on the system, we can keep data stored by the number
> HarddiskVolume#, rather than having to remember the full
> \Harddisk0\DP(1)0x7e00…
>
> Are there any further ideas or suggestions for how this might have come
> about on this client’s machine and whether it might be able to be fixed?
>
> The partition manager is going to bail if it thinks the device is removable
…but then it is not going to recognize more than one partition on the target disk if it believes that the disk is removable. This is why I say the situation in itself is really interesting - it looks like the target disk is treated as both basic and removable one (the system recognizes multiple partitions on it but logical volumes are still not mounted)…
Anton Bassov
Looking in the Registry here: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\Setup
Here is what we find on systems that are not working correctly
“SystemPartition”=“\Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)0x7e00-0x2241db4200+1”
And here is what we find on dozens of workstations and servers with varying OS where it does work
“SystemPartition”=“\Device\HarddiskVolume1”
According to one System Admin they have a few systems from Fujitsu and HP factory images with this different entry.
I have both Dell and HP Workstations and Servers but so far I’m unable to locate any with factory images that have this type of different entry.