Moving Dynamic Disks Between Computers May Cause Data Loss (266177)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
  • Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional
This article was previously published under Q266177

SYMPTOMS

If a dynamic disk, such as one with a globally unique identifier (GUID) partition table, contains volumes that use other disks (spanned, stripped, mirrored, or RAID-5 volumes), the other disks in the group (non-GUID partition table disks that were brought along with the GUID partition table disk) may be reconfigured if you move the drives between computers.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur because the Logical Disk Manager service supports only one dynamic disk group ID on each computer. When the disks are moved back to the original computer, two new dynamic disks appear on the computer. The disk set ID of one of these disks (the GUID partition table disk) matches the disk set ID in the registry because the GUID partition table dynamic disk was created on the computer originally. The other disk has a different disk set ID because the configuration was modified by the other computer. The computer trusts the GUID partition table disk, and sets the properties of the incoming disk set according to the database that is stored on this disk. This means that the original GUID partition table configuration is restored and the modified configuration of the second disk (and also the data) is lost.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, obtain the latest service pack for Windows 2000. For additional information, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

260910 How to Obtain the Latest Windows 2000 Service Pack

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

This problem was first corrected in Windows 2000 Service Pack 1.

MORE INFORMATION

Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) disks use GUID partition tables by default.
Modification Type:MajorLast Reviewed:11/14/2003
Keywords:kbbug kbenv kbfix kbHardware kbWin2000SP1Fix KB266177
©2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.