THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

--update-- we're hearing more reports of "froze" grey screen servers... hang loose for more details.. a reboot that takes a longggg time appears to clear it up....

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: Ntfs
Event Category: None
Event ID: 50
Date:  8/31/2006
Time:  8:01:04 PM
User:  N/A
Computer: DOMAIN
Description:
{Delayed Write Failed} Windows was unable to save all the data for the file . The data has been lost. This error may be caused by a failure of your computer hardware or network connection. Please try to save this file elsewhere.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 04 00 04 00 02 00 52 00   ......R.
0008: 00 00 00 00 32 00 04 80   ....2..€
0010: 00 00 00 00 b5 00 00 c0   ....µ..À
0018: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0020: 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00   ........
0028: b5 00 00 c0               µ..À   

Okay so in my infinite wisdom I enabled shadow copies and wanted to place them off the main harddrive... so ...says I... why not stick them on a usb harddrive... brilliant right?  Well until the drive starts to go south and ends up freezing up the server in the process....

In the event viewer under WARNINGS... so mind you ...they were not showing up in my daily email.... was this over and over and over again..

Event Type:    Warning
Event Source:    PlugPlayManager
Event Category:    None
Event ID:    257
Date:        8/31/2006
Time:        6:49:36 PM
User:        N/A
Computer:    DOMAIN
Description:
Timed out sending notification of target device change to window of "C:\WINDOWS\Explorer.EXE"

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

And because I was relying on only the critical... I didn't see that the issue of that failing harddrive was about to smack me in the face tonight.

Bottom line...there are reasons to use usb drives.. like for backing up on a planned rotation.  But it's not a good idea to use one as an external location for shadow copies.

Shadow copies now reenabled and on the proper hardware. Lesson learned for the evening.

P.S.  someone asked today what happens when they delete a file on the server does it go to the recycle bin and with shadow copies enabled I can get deleted stuff back.  It's way cool and something you should be ensuring is fine tuned (I take a snap every hour on the hour) and show your clients how to restore a 'shadow copied' file.