The plex is missing

[darkangael]

Hi there,

I've got a situation on windows server 2008 r2 using dynamic spanned volumes. I have one spanned volume across two disks. Whilst moving some things around inside the case I managed to bump out the SATA cable from the non-system disk (whilst the power was off, fortunately). I didn't notice until after I had booted and found the disk missing. I dutifully turned the machine off and plugged the drive back in.

What I have now is a disk still marked as "missing" in disk management (device manager sees it just fine). When I tell windows to "reactivate" it, I get the message "The Plex is missing.".

I am hoping there might be some kind of way of restoring this mysterious "plex". I've tried using "getdataback" to find my data and copy it to an external hard drive. I've had *some* success with this (mostly in getting files off the system disk which isn't "missing"), but there are still files missing that I'd like to try and get back. If anyone has any ideas on how to find/restore the plex, or has had experience dealing with spanned archives then they would be much appreciated.

I'll post a "diskpatch" log hopefully sometime tomorrow when I have the time.

[Tom]

The DiskPatch log file won't be any good for this, so skip that. Have you tried the MS knowledgebase? Sounds like the place to start for something like this. Apart from that, if repairs are not possible, the only remedy is to lift the files from the disks, as you already did. So i don't have much to add to all this, i'm afraid.

Found this on the MS site. Not all that helpful, but it explains something about a plex:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/951985

[darkangael]

Thanks Tom.

I haven't tried the knowledgebase specifically (I fail at searching that thing, never seem to be able to turn up a better result than google ), but google doesn't show up anything for that error message other than a site that lists possible error messages. I was somewhat worried that it might be a case of recovering what I can using recovery tools and moving on, but I might try messing around in diskpart and seeing if the command line utilities can provide more info than the GUI does.

[Joep]

Hello,

GetdatBack will not help you as it is not capable by itself to 'simulate' a spanned volume. So, it may be able to show you files but anything larger than the stripe size will be corrupt.

You may want to try if iRecover can still use the LDM and allow you to select the spanned volume.

[darkangael]

Looks like GetDataback worked fine. I suspect the reason being that the volume was "spanned" not striped. It writes to disk 1 until it gets full, then writes to the second. I lost a few files that can be recovered but most of it's there. I've cut my losses and restored all of these files and broken the span. I plan to re-format the system disk and replace it with simple volumes. Not gonna trust dynamic volumes for a long time.

[Joep]

hello,

Ok good that you got most of your stuff back. Yes, most data will end up being written to the first disk until it gets full. I am sorry I confused span/stripe, my mistake.

[darkangael]

No problems and thanks for your help

Now I just need to get find the time to rebuild my server with simple partitions (and perhaps a better, more operational DNS setup )

[Joep]

Hello,

Yes, I still prefer simple partitions, because it's simpler. Of course there are conditions where Dynamic disks can't be avoided.

[Joep]

Someone with a similar issue sent us his solution:

I have had a similar problem as you except I just forgot to plug the power cord back in on one of my drives that was partitioned to be half virtual raid 1 and the rest a normal volume. After some messing around and googling to no avail, I realized in the "create and format hard drive partitions" utility there was a new block on the left with no drive information separate from the failed portions. All I needed to do to fix the issue was to click it and go through and add the failed partition to it. Now everything is back to normal. Hope this helps anyone who finds themself in a similar situation."

Thanks for your time and ill trust you will forward this on if you feel it would best serve the interests of planet earth

-Chris

Thank you Chris!