Volume on more than one disk

[cjsj1]

Hi Everyone

just had the worst few minutes of my life. i have 2 drives in my 5.1 server and i have one volume called Data which covers both drives.
i moved some files that i created last night and something happened to the second drive.
now i cant mount the volume at all it just comes up with the following errors

Volume DATA last segment (0) ends at block 610159 instead of 922676
Definition for sync 1 of volume DATA removed
Definition for volume DATA is invalid

it wont even mount the first drive so i can get at all my normal files i am not to worried about the second drive.

has anybody got any ideas that might be able to resolve this issue, i wouldnt want to lose all my data (and yes i havent got a recent backup yes very foolish i know)

Thanks for anybodys time in advance

 

[TheLad]

If your second drive is screwed, so is your volume. You cannot partially mount a volume. Have you reseated your connections to your disks?

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[cjsj1]

yes all checked and double checked, still this is the lesson that i should have learnt without losing files. it was one of the things i never knew about netware volumes is that spanning is a bad idea.

still thats life i suppose.

i am looking at some software by ontrack that says it can recover files even if the volume is spanned across disks see below

ODRN is the only way you can gain access to your data without rebuilding mirrors. Even if the mirrored volume is spanned across several drives, ODRN will allow the user to access the specific set of devices which need repair despite mirroring problems. If you have several failures, i.e. one drive in one mirror set and a different drive in another mirror set, ODRN will allow the user to use the "good" drives from each set and quickly copy the data to a more stable server.


but i have a funny feeling that mine are NOT mirrored so it wont be of any use


thanks for the prompt reply

 

[cjsj1]

but saying that the actual drive is fine and can be seen ok. just netware sya it cant see what it need to i suppose

 

[TheLad]

So the BIOS can see both disks, but can NetWare? Boot NetWare up and check...

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"It's true, its damn true!"
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[cjsj1]

yes the bios can see both drives

when i go into nwconfig i can see all three drives

1 which is sys
and the other 2 which contain my data volume

when i look into each of the drives it says that there is a netware volume on each drive

it looks like i now have 2 drives with the same name and netware cant decide which one has the correct info

hope this helps

 

[terry712]

you lost me abit here ate beginning you have 2 drives
now you have three ?

what excatly do you have

a single drive that had sys
then a software mirror for the data over two drives?

sys mounts - data cant ?

 

[cjsj1]

yes thats right

1 drive that contains sys
drives 2 and 3 contain the data volume psanned across them

 

[terry712]

spanned across or software mirrored

 

[cjsj1]

i started with one drive and when that was full i just added the second and added it to the data volume when it asked if it wanted to be a new volume or added to an excisting one

 

[LawnBoy]

Would a pool rebuild help this?

 

[cjsj1]

i am not using NNS but tradtional file system and running NW 5.1 SP8 wish i had been it looks so easy to recover from situations if you have got NNS

thanks for the reply anyway

 

[terry712]

not looking too good

let me get this correct
the bios see's the 3 physical disks
netware see's the three physical disks and that they have a netware partition on them
the latter two disks are spanned

if they are traditional then a vrepair might see them
if they are nss then a verify or rebuild might help

if the data is important then your looking at some kind of recovery service

on a side note spanning isnt good in any os not just netware

 

[cjsj1]

yes you are right in your reply as regards the setup.

when i run vrepair it just says the same thing as below

Volume DATA last segment (0) ends at block 610159 instead of 922676
Definition for sync 1 of volume DATA removed
Definition for volume DATA is invalid

i have just setup a new 6.5 server and am going to install the 2 disks in there and see what the new OS thinks of them maybe there is something there that may be able to help. otherwise yes it will have top be a £200 spend on portlock or something like that

thanks for everybodys help in this matter just hope that people who dont backup properly that read this will do something straight away rather than lose data

 

[cjsj1]

putting the drives in the new server made no difference exept that it can still see the partitions and it knows that the volumes are there just wont mount them.

thanks again for your help

 

[marvhuffaker]

I wouldn't do VREPAIR. I am guessing Ontrack is your best bet.
I've used it to recover some things that otherwise would have been impossible. It's like $500 and I believe the free demo will tell you if you can get your files back or not. If it can see the files, cough up the 5 benjamins and call it a day.

And next time don't span volumes. What happened to the volume in the first place? You were copying files.. something happened.. What was it? Just copying files won't cause this problem. The volume would have had to have been dismounted either manually or by some kind of device failure.



Marvin Huffaker, MCNE

http://www.redjuju.com