HP SureStore E SAN Manager LUN Management Administrator's Guide

168 Ftdisk
Ftdisk
Ftdisk (Microsoft’s striping, mirroring, and volume-set driver) is a disk filter driver. Once a
disk is enabled on a machine that is running Ftdisk, the device cannot be disabled until
Ftdisk is stopped or the machine is shut down. This is because Ftdisk does not release its
reference to the disk.
Disabling a disk when there are active references to it could cause a computer to crash, so
SAN Manager LM does not allow it. To determine if Ftdisk is running, check its status in the
Devices Control Panel.
Configuring Stripe, Volume, and Mirror Sets with Disk
Administrator
You must have Ftdisk enabled if you want to create stripe, volume, and mirror sets in Disk
Administrator or access such sets on a Windows NT system. Ftdisk looks for and attaches
to disks when it is loaded—at system startup. If Ftdisk is not enabled when you configure
sets in Disk Administrator, it will enable Ftdisk and force a reboot.
If devices are assigned to a host that already has Ftdisk started, Disk Administrator, which
refreshes dynamically, will let you see the new devices and allow you to go through the
motions of creating a set. Since Ftdisk did not find the new devices at startup, it will not
handle the new set(s) properly and Disk Administrator might quit unexpectedly. Or you
may end up with an invalid set that appears to span several devices but actually includes
just one device.
Workaround:
•
To create valid sets in Disk Administrator, assign the devices that will be configured into
a set before the host is started.
• If you assign devices after startup, restart the host before creating sets.