Cannot Remove False System Partition Using Disk Management

• Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server
• Microsoft Windows 2000 Server

SYMPTOMS

When you view partitions in the Disk Management tool, 2 separate volumes (such as drive C and D) may be listed as the "system" partition. Your original dynamic system disk may be listed as "Missing" - "Offline", and you may be unable to delete this "fake" system volume. If you try to delete the false system volume, you may receive the following error message:

Cannot delete the system volume on this disk.

This volume is no longer the current system volume. All data on this volume will be lost. Are you sure you want to format this volume ?

CAUSE

This problem can occur for either of the following reasons:

• If the system partition was originally located on a dynamic disk and was mirrored using Windows 2000 mirroring to another dynamic disk. If the mirror does not succeed for any reason, and both halves becomes unbootable, you may be forced to re-install Windows 2000. Doing so creates a new system volume, but the surviving dynamic disk database still has references to the original system volume partition. This creates a condition of having two different "system" partitions on separate drives.



• A dynamic disk set that contained a "system" partition was imported into the current system. The dynamic disk set imported still has the system partition flagged in the LDM private region database.

RESOLUTION

To work around this issue:

1. Because Disk Management won't permit you to delete the "false" system partition, backup all data located on any other volumes contained on that disk.



2. Manually delete all the partitions using the Recovery Console diskpart command to permit the "raw" drive to be re-partitioned and the data restored from your backup. For additional information about how to do so, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

   Q229716 Description of the Windows 2000 Recovery Console

   Q227364 Dynamic Volumes Are Not Displayed Accurately in Text-Mode Setup

STATUS

Microsoft has confirmed this to be a problem in the Microsoft products listed at the beginning of this article.

MORE INFORMATION

Before deciding to re-install Windows 2000 after a disk mirror failure, try using emergency repair procedures, a fault tolerant boot diskette, or the Recovery Console to make either half of the failed mirror bootable. Once you have a bootable system partition, you can resync or re-establish the mirror. Note that this will prevent the problem described in this article from occurring.

Additional query words: veritas ldm

Keywords : kbtool kbui
Version : WINDOWS:2000
Platform : WINDOWS
Issue type : kbprb