Problem with Dynamic Disk "INTERNAL Error - Disk group has no valid configuration copies

[Jon W. Robinson]

I am running Windows 2000 professional and have two drives that were set up
as dynamic on a two channel SCSI controller (Adaptec 39160). One is on
channel A and the other on channel B. Both are marked as being "Offline".
When I try to "Reactivate" either disk I get the message "INTERNAL Error -
Disk group has no valid configuration copies". Other peculiarities: The
enable/disable drop down is disabled for Channel B when a second drive in
"basic mode" is attached. However, the same drop down box works fine on
Channel B.
Each channel has a drive with a basic mode drive and a dynamic mode drive.
Only the dynamic ones are unavailable. Is there any solution short of
reformatting the drives and restoring from backup?

As far as I can tell both drives are still in good shape, I ran the Adaptec
check disk on both drives and they pass with no remapping. Is there any
trick to get these on line, or to software to inspect them and create a new
valid configuration?

Thanks,
Jon

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I am running Windows 2000 professional and have two drives that were set up
as dynamic on a two channel SCSI controller (Adaptec 39160). One is on
channel A and the other on channel B. Both are marked as being "Offline".
When I try to "Reactivate" either disk I get the message "INTERNAL Error -
Disk group has no valid configuration copies". Other peculiarities: The
enable/disable drop down is disabled for Channel B when a second drive in
"basic mode" is attached. However, the same drop down box works fine on
Channel B.
Each channel has a drive with a basic mode drive and a dynamic mode drive.
Only the dynamic ones are unavailable. Is there any solution short of
reformatting the drives and restoring from backup?

As far as I can tell both drives are still in good shape, I ran the Adaptec
check disk on both drives and they pass with no remapping. Is there any
trick to get these on line, or to software to inspect them and create a new
valid configuration?

Thanks,
Jon

If you have no options left other than restoring from backup then
you could try this:
- Boot the machine with a Win98 boot disk (www.bootdisk.com).
- Run ptedit.exe
(ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/)
- Change the partition type of the dynamic partition to NTFS. I think
the type number is 07.

The change is fully reversible as long as you note WHERE you
made it and WHAT it was before.

Note that this change will cause those functions that are specific
to dynamic disks to be lost.

 

[Jon W. Robinson]

I should have said, that the "enable/disable drop down box works fine for
Channel A (see correction below). The drives being discussed were set up as
NTFS Dynamic. It would seem that the right piece of software might be able
to create a valid configuration file by examining the content of the disks.
Having read the description of Dynamic disks, I thought each drive, even
though they are on different SCSI channels should have had a copy of the
Dynamic configuration.... Another question is what might have made them
both go bad at the same time?

-Jon