Problems reading files with win98SE after copying them from netware to W2K

[Richard]

I hope somebody can help me with the following problem;

In our hospital we are migrating our file- and printservices from
Novell Netware to Windows 2000.
We use NDS-migrator from quest
(http://www.quest.com/fastlane/nds_migrator/) to migrate rights and
files.
NDS-migrator is installed on a Windows 2000 Server with the native
Novell Netware Client (version 4.9). We called this server the
migration server.
NDS-migrator needs the native netware client to read the NDS and
filesystem rights on Novell Netware.
The filesystem on Netware is NSS-formatted.
We are about to upgrade aprox. 5000 workstations from Windows98SE to
Windows XP Pro.
In our situation it is impossible to deploy the new OS to the
workstations. That is agreed in the organisation.
It is also agreed that the workstations witch are not migrated must
have access to the data.

Now her is the problem: When we migrate the NDS objects and the files
from Novell to Windows 2000 many files (>60%)
cannot been accessed with the Windows98SE clients on the Windows 2000
NTFS partitions. The same files are accesible with a
Windows 2000 or Windows XP Workstation with the same login
credentials. (Rights seems not to be an issue here)

First we suspected our migration tool. To rule that out we simply
copied files manualy with the explorer of the migration server.
We discovered the very same problem with the very same files. So the
tool could hardly be the topic nagging us.

Just for trying we installed a Windows NT 4 Server in the domain as a
member. The problem still remains on the NT4 NTFS volume

When we copied the files from a non-NNS Novell Netware volume, the
problem disappeared.
However we can't turn al our Neware servers into servers with a
non-NSS volume. (This means we have to migrate twice.
First a Novell-Novell migration and then a Novell-Windows migration.)
It is to much efford to migrate Netware to Netware and nagging the
users with two migrations. (Orders from the boss)

The problem also disapeared when we use Gateway Services for Netware
(GSNW) instead of the Native Netware client.
But we need the Native Netware client to let NDS-Migrator do its
tasks. So this is also not realy an option.

That brings us to the NTFS filesystem. There must be somewhere a bit
witch causes our problem.
The files are identical on both the platforms. they have the same CRC.
It is unlikely that the files are corrupted during the copy process.
The files could be opened with an W2K an WXP workstation.
The problem must reside somewhere else. Perhaps somewhere in the
fysical structure of the NTFS. But this is a part that is realy
unknown to me.
Browsing on the Internet brings me a tool called Stream Explorer
(http://www.rekenwonder.com/streamexplorer.htm)
With this tool I was able to see some 'dark sides' of NTFS. One of the
things I've learned was that NTFS uses streams to store additional
information about the files.
As far as I could discover this mechanism is implemeted in NTFS to be
compatible with Macintosh. But this topic is still very foggy to me.

The next step we took was to copy a file, witch was known to have the
problem, twice. Once with the native Novell Client and once with the
GSNW.
We checked if the problem remains in the file copied with the native
Novell client by opening the file on a Win98SE machine. (It did) and
we opened the file copied with GSNW. (This one was accessible as
expected).
Now we started the Stream Explorer and discovered some issues.
The file copied with GSNW often contains only two streams (Security
descriptor data & Standard data (default stream))
The file copied with the native Netware client contains a thirth
stream; Extended attribute data
This indicates that the problem may caused by the thirth stream.
To rule that out we copied more files with the two methods (native
netware and GSNW)
Then we discovered that there were files witch also contains the
'Extended attribute data' stream but were accessible with the
Windows98SE workstation.
Now we susspect that probably litteraly one bit is nagging us, because
we discovered a difference on the 5th byte witch contains $80 on the
working file and $00 on the non-working file.

My initial questions are:
- Is there anybody who is familiar with this streams thing on NTFS ?
- Can I edit or delete these specific Extended Data Stream ? (If I
can, how ?)
- Is there anybody who had simular problems too ? (How did you solve
this)

Unfortunatly we have to redesign our Migration to work around this
problem. It would be nice if there was a quick and dirty way to make
the files accessible.

Regards,

Richard

 

[Guest]

G'Day Richard

I'm not too sure if this is exactly the same problem that you are experiencing or not, but the following might help....

I too am in the process of migrating from Novell to Microsoft using the Quest NDS Migrator tool. The exact problem that I am seeing, is that after migration, certain files and folders give an "access is denied" error message when a user tries to browse to them. If the same user knows the exact UNC path (i.e. \\servername\folder\subfolder\subfolder\etc\) then they are able to successfully access the file or folder in question

We have determined that this is a problem with NTFS (or rather a design feature) see Microsoft Knoledge base article # 30375

Basiclly the problem is that, in NDS there is a permission called File Scan, which allows a user to traverse folders that they have inherited permissions to, but not to see any contents (including other subfolders) that they do not have permissions to see. NTFS does not allow for this functionallity

Hope that this helps
Michael