Dynamic Disk Numbering and the DmDiag.exe Tool (222470)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
This article was previously published under Q222470

SUMMARY

Windows 2000 contains a fault-tolerant disk component named dynamic disks that is different then the fault-tolerant disk component in earlier versions of Microsoft Windows NT. You may administer dynamic disks by using the Disk Management snap-in. The DmDiag.exe tool can be used to decipher disk numbering, and this may be useful for situations where your disk numbering is very complex.

MORE INFORMATION

There are now two disk types, basic and dynamic. A dynamic disk is the only type of disk you may use to create new mirrors, stripe sets, extended or spanned or RAID-5 volumes.

With dynamic disks, all volume information is stored in a private database at the end of the disk. Disks are numbered as they are upgraded from basic to dynamic, so they can be numbered differently from the numbering in the Disk Management snap-in.

For example, in Disk Management you may see the following numbering information:

Disk Management
Disk 0
Disk 1
Disk 2
Disk 3

If you were to upgrade only disk 2 and disk 3 to dynamic (in that order), then the dynamic disk database would display the following numbering:

Windows 2000 Disk #Dynamic Disk Private #
Harddisk2Disk1
Harddisk3Disk2


When you use the DmDiag Query command, you receive the following output:

NOTE: Make note of the lines that start with dm DiskX; these denote which dynamic disk private numbers match the numbers in the Windows 2000 Disk Management snap-in.

Disk group: MachineNameDg0

DG NAME         NCONFIG      NLOG     MINORS   GROUP-ID
DM NAME         DEVICE       TYPE     PRIVLEN  PUBLEN   STATE
V  NAME         USETYPE      KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   READPOL   PREFPLEX
PL NAME         VOLUME       KSTATE   STATE    LENGTH   LAYOUT    NCOL/WID MODE
SD NAME         PLEX         DISK     DISKOFFS LENGTH   [COL/]OFF DEVICE   MODE

dg MachineNameDg0 all       default  0        14ad79a0-b48c-11d2-b461-00c04f8eec37

dm Disk1        Harddisk2    ntdisk   2048     17767827 -
dm Disk2        Harddisk3    ntdisk   2048     17767826 -

v  Volume1      gen          ENABLED  ACTIVE   8388608  SELECT    -
pl Volume1-01   Volume1      ENABLED  ACTIVE   8388608  CONCAT    -        RW
sd Disk1-01     Volume1-01   Disk1    0        8388608  0         Harddisk2 ENA

v  Volume2      gen          ENABLED  ACTIVE   4194304  SELECT    -
pl Volume2-01   Volume2      ENABLED  ACTIVE   4194304  CONCAT    -        RW
sd Disk1-02     Volume2-01   Disk1    8388608  4194304  0         Harddisk2 ENA

v  Volume3      gen          ENABLED  ACTIVE   4194304  SELECT    -
pl Volume3-01   Volume3      ENABLED  ACTIVE   4194304  CONCAT    -        RW
sd Disk2-01     Volume3-01   Disk2    0        4194304  0         Harddisk3 ENA

v  Volume4      gen          ENABLED  ACTIVE   4194304  SELECT    -
pl Volume4-01   Volume4      ENABLED  ACTIVE   4194304  CONCAT    -        RW
sd Disk2-02     Volume4-01   Disk2    4194304  4194304  0         Harddisk3  ENA


For additional information about dynamic and basic storage, please see the following article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

175761 Dynamic vs. Basic Storage in Windows 2000

Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/21/2003
Keywords:kbinfo KB222470
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.