Windows 11 Storage Space: After adding 2 HDDs, no longer accessible

Question

Hello:
Upgraded my media server hardware and OS to new Win11 system from Win10. Successfully moved my Storage Space to the new machine. Once satisfied it was working properly with Plex Media Server, I added two new HDs (12TB ea) to the existing Storage Pool. This is a 2 way mirror setup.

At first I was getting an error about the drives were not compatible with the current SS (storage space). Using the partition manager, I made sure the new drives had a 512 byte sector, rather than "default". That seemed to allow the drives to be added to the SS without apparent issue, after rebooting. Trying to set to 4K did not allow the drives to be added. Interestingly, later when viewing the SS via a PS cmdlet, noticed that the sector size was 4k after all. Not sure that is meaningful or not.

Optimize drives was checked.

I then expanded the SS from 40 to max 80 TB. SS manager still says pool is OK. With the new drives I now have 58TB and am using about 25 TB. When I tried to access the drive (still optimizing), getting "inaccessible" and then drive needs to be formatted. "Drive does not contain a recognized file system." I did not format, knowing that that formatting would delete the data (about 12 tb of media).

On checking the SS drive (G: on my system) is fine, but RAW. (Disk Manager) Not sure I ever really looked, but it was my understanding that one adds unformatted drives to a SS? When looking at the Disk Manager at the SS drive, what should one see for a file system of a SS? I could not find any information on this.

Cancelled Optimization process and still not accessible.

In PS Get_VirtualDisk: all 8 drives, was 6 before adding, showed OK/healthy.

PS: Get-StoragePool: shows Health Status: Healthy; Operational Status: OK; ReadOnly Reason: None;

In EventViewer: Applications and Services Logs/Microsoft/Windows/StorageSpaces-Driver/Operational during time when Optimization was running shows warning that a disk was having some issues that affect writing. Says that windows will repair the drive.

I am new to all this so have no idea what is happening here. If you need more information, please let me know where/how to find it and I will include it. I will be happy to provide screen shots of any PS results; just let me know what to include.

Bottom Line: How do I get my access to my SS back?
Thank you,
Chuck

get-virtualdisk | select-object *

Usage : Data
NameFormat :
OperationalStatus : OK
HealthStatus : Healthy
ProvisioningType : Thin
AllocationUnitSize : 268435456
MediaType : Unspecified
ParityLayout :
Access : Read/Write
UniqueIdFormat : Vendor Specific
DetachedReason : None
WriteCacheSize : 0
FaultDomainAwareness : PhysicalDisk
ColumnIsolation : PhysicalDisk
ObjectId : {1}\PHYTOTECHMS\root/Microsoft/Windows/Storage/Providers_v2\SPACES_VirtualDisk.Obj
ectId="{4c952159-739a-11ed-a425-806e6f6e6963}:VD:{eaa938c7-4c37-46a9-a817-607fb0adc
428}{a5004407-2ef9-41e9-9ec2-d4330b7a746d}"
PassThroughClass :
PassThroughIds :
PassThroughNamespace :
PassThroughServer :
UniqueId : 074400A5F92EE9419EC2D4330B7A746D
AllocatedSize : 15657840148480
FootprintOnPool : 31316217167872
FriendlyName : Storage space
Interleave : 262144
IsDeduplicationEnabled : False
IsEnclosureAware : False
IsManualAttach : False
IsSnapshot : False
IsTiered : False
LogicalSectorSize : 4096
MaxIoBandwidth : 0
MaxIops : 0
MinimumLogicalDataCopies : 1
Name :
NumberOfAvailableCopies :
NumberOfColumns : 1
NumberOfDataCopies : 2
NumberOfGroups : 1
OtherOperationalStatusDescription :
OtherUsageDescription :
PhysicalDiskRedundancy : 1
PhysicalSectorSize : 4096
ReadCacheSize : 0
RequestNoSinglePointOfFailure : False
ResiliencySettingName : Mirror
Size : 87960930222080
TrackValidData : False
UniqueIdFormatDescription :
WriteCacheReserveSize : 0
PSComputerName :
CimClass : ROOT/Microsoft/Windows/Storage:MSFT_VirtualDisk
CimInstanceProperties : {ObjectId, PassThroughClass, PassThroughIds, PassThroughNamespace...}
CimSystemProperties : Microsoft.Management.Infrastructure.CimSystemProperties

Answer 1

This is what I have decided to do:

1. Prepare to remove the two recently added 12 Tb drives. Optimization had already move about 14% of their capacity over from the Storage pool.
2. Format the 2 12 Tb drives.
3. Use ReclaiMe (https://www.reclaime.com/download.aspx) to see and Save the directories and files to the 2 12Tb drives. Their evaluation software easily shows the files. I have not activated the software yet by purchasing it. But intend to.
4. Once copied over, then use Stable Bit Drive Pool (https://stablebit.com/DrivePool/Download) to create a Drive pool THAT DOES NOT USE WINDOWS STORAGE POOL!
5. Once the Drive Pool is set up use Teracopy (https://www.codesector.com/downloads ) to copy the approximately 14 Tb of media files back to the new Drive pool, thus eliminating the need for Windows Storage Pool.

When researching this issue, kept running across people who used CAPS to warn people about Windows Storage Pool. I kept thinking, "What's wrong with that guy? Why so upset?" Now I know!

Answer 2

Results of Chkdsk g: (Storage space) is below.

Looked through the Event Viewer, but could not find anything regarding Shadow Copy error, but then I may have looked in the wrong area.

I did look in Services and started Microsoft Storage Spaces SMP and Microsoft Software Shadow Copy Provider. NO CHANGE
Since these services did not seem to do anything, I stopped them, i.e. put them back in state I found them.

I ran Chkdsk g:/F and no mention of the shadow copy provider error. NO CHANGE, G: still not accessible. Chkdsk g: still shows Shadow Copy Provider error.

How do I fix this, assuming this is a shadow copy issue?

C:\Windows\System32>chkdsk g:
The type of the file system is NTFS.
The shadow copy provider had an error. Check the System and Application event logs for more information.

Volume label is Storage space.

WARNING! /F parameter not specified.
Running CHKDSK in read-only mode.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
27392 file records processed.
File verification completed.
Phase duration (File record verification): 1.72 seconds.
19855 large file records processed.
Phase duration (Orphan file record recovery): 28.35 milliseconds.
0 bad file records processed.
Phase duration (Bad file record checking): 3.32 milliseconds.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
502 reparse records processed.
29910 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
Phase duration (Index verification): 606.31 milliseconds.
0 unindexed files scanned.
Phase duration (Orphan reconnection): 1.76 milliseconds.
0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.
Phase duration (Orphan recovery to lost and found): 0.21 milliseconds.
502 reparse records processed.
Phase duration (Reparse point and Object ID verification): 3.54 milliseconds.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
Phase duration (Security descriptor verification): 20.85 milliseconds.
1260 data files processed.
Phase duration (Data attribute verification): 20.47 milliseconds.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
26229936 USN bytes processed.
Usn Journal verification completed.
Phase duration (USN journal verification): 165.83 milliseconds.

Windows has scanned the file system and found no problems.
No further action is required.

41942910 MB total disk space.
14871480 MB in 5937 files.
8016 KB in 1261 indexes.
0 KB in bad sectors.
451144 KB in use by the system.
65536 KB occupied by the log file.
27070982 MB available on disk.

 16384 bytes in each allocation unit.  

2684346302 total allocation units on disk.
1732542877 allocation units available on disk.
Total duration: 2.57 seconds (2574 ms).

Answer 3

Yes, managed to successfully copy all 14.2 Tb of files without issue using Teracopy from the ReclaiMe saved files to the newly setup DrivePool drive. Very happy I made the transition from Windows Storage Pool.