Windows 10: Need Help Recovering 2 Virtual Disks and 30TB Storage Pool After OS Reinstall Windows 10...

I was having odd but similar issues on 2 different systems running Windows !0 Enterprise Insider Preview Build 21277 in the Dev Channel. I was able to resolve the issues on one system, but not the other and had to reinstall from USB currently a non-insider version of Windows 10 Enterprise. After the install I can't seem to bring back my virtual disks or storage pool.


I've been able to bring them back previously after similar issues, but this time I can't manage to do it, and feel like I'm missing something.


This system was actually running Windows Server 2016 when the original storage pool was created, but I was able to install Windows 10 and bring back the storage pool several times without ever losing the data on the virtual disk.


One thing I haven't tried is going back into the Windows Insider Dev Channel because of the issues I was having originally that forced the re-install. I feel like I'm missing something, but I'm not quite sure what. Obviously I'd like to recover the data, which I'm sure is still there, I just can't seem to get the storage pool back.


Below are some screenshots and results. Any suggestions or help would be very much appreciated.


The physical disks show up, both in PowerShell and Disk Management, but the storage pool only shows up in PowerShell, not the Storage Spaces GUI. In the screenshot below you can see that the physical disks are shown as "Healthy Storage Spaces Protective Partition.


get-physicaldisk results

Note: The SSD holds the OS





Disk Management




get-storagepool results





Storage Spaces



get-virtualdisk results




I tried repair-virtualdisk via PowerShell, but since I can't get the disk to display, I don't know what the FriendlyName is. I tried "Virtual Disk", but either didn't work or wasn't correct.


repair-virtualdisk results




:)

 

Does a storage pool survive a reinstall?

Thank you. This is actually not an emergency. I am simulating one with a non-critical machine in order to learn the behavior in case of actual emergency. I have full backups so that is not a problem. However, the disks are not partitioned or RAIDed, these
are actually separate drives. My purpose is in fact to separate the system from the data and - ideally - to deploy whatever operating system I might need while leaving the data as is. Windows is on one smaller hard disk, while data 1 and 2 are joined in a
storage pool (no parity, ReFS, thin provisioning) subdivided in virtual disks F, G, H, etc. Of course only Windows would understand the storage space, so I am also trying to evaluate using a storage pool vs. leaving the disks as separate entities. I will test
a hard removal scenario and see what happens with the storage pool, supposing the original Windows system disk dies without any chance of gracefully recovering/deleting the storage pool. Thank you for your help.

 

Does a storage pool survive a reinstall?

Hello, I have searched for an answer but couldn't find one. My Windows 10 is split between disks. The system is on one disk, while 2 others make up a storage space (divided in several virtual drives) which only contains data. Now suppose the Windows disk
fails (while the storage space is ok) and I have to reinstall the system on a new disk. If I recreate a new Windows 10 system, will it be able to read the large storage space that was "orphaned"?

Thanks for any suggestion.

 

How to remove external hard disk from storage pool on Windows 10

Hi Velen,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community.

I understand your concern about removing the external hard disk from storage pool, we will help you with this issue.

Try the below steps to: Remove a physical disk by using Windows PowerShell
and check if it helps.

• 
  Press Windows
  key from the keyboard, type Windows PowerShell and select
  Run as administrator.
  
• 
  Enter the command replacing <diskname> with the disk name:
  

• • 
    Set-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName <diskname> -Usage Retired
    

(If the pool is clustered, you will need to run this command on the cluster node which has the cluster resource for the pool online.)

3. Prior to performing step 5, you must wait for all active repair jobs to complete. To monitor the status of repair jobs, type the following command:
Get-StorageJob

4. Type the following command: Remove-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName <diskname>

5. Physically disconnect the old disk.

For further reference: Storage Spaces Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Hope it helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of this issue for further assistance.