Disks show as offline on rebooting Windows

2008 host after a Data ONTAP upgrade

KB ID: 2013348 Version: 15.0 Published date: 10/28/2014 Views: 14633
Symptoms
After upgrading Data ONTAP, all LUNs attached to the Windows 2008 servers
appear offline.
DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------ ---- ------------Disk 0 Online 18 GB 0 B
Disk 1 Offline 306 MB 306 MB *
Disk 2 Offline 306 MB 306 MB *

Disks are good after bringing them back online.

The following configuration applies:

Windows 2008 server with SAN Policy set to Offline Shared

MPIO of some fashion (ONTAP DSM or MSDSM)
Data ONTAP upgrade

Note: Clustered Data ONTAP is not affected because the revision code stays the
same for luns mapped to a windows igroup.
Cause
Data ONTAP upgrades to 7.3.x and later will change the LUN revision numbers.
For more information on Data ONTAP versions and LUN revision numbers, see
article 3013103: What does the revision number of a LUN provided by Data
ONTAP signify?
Data ONTAP versions prior to 7.3 use a LUN revision number of 0.2, which can
be seen using the devcon.exe utility:
MPIO\DISK&VEN_NETAPP&PROD_LUN&REV_0.2_\1&7F6AC24&0&4334677547345438416C4B4F
: NETAPP LUN Multi-Path Disk Device

After 7.2.x, LUN revision numbers took on the version of Data ONTAP and the
storage system was upgraded to:
MPIO\DISK&VEN_NETAPP&PROD_LUN&REV_7310\1&7F6AC24&0&5672482F2F4A54344E46674C
: NETAPP LUN Multi-Path Disk Device

Microsoft made a change to the default SAN Policy for Windows 2008
Enterprise and Datacenter Editions. The default policy is now Offline
Shared. This is a departure from Windows 2003 and Windows 2008 SE.
They all use Online All. This change in SAN policy was designed to
prevent data corruption. With Microsoft's new Majority Node Set model for
clustering, it is possible that the disk could belong to a different cluster. The
OS will set the disk offline to prevent corruption. This change was also
introduced to prevent careless administrators from mapping the same LUN
to more than one non-clustered host. With this setting, the virtual disk will
appear on the new host as offline, again in an effort to prevent data
corruption.
If the storage system is upgraded using the NDU process, the LUN revision
number retains its previous version until the next reboot of the Windows
2008 server. When the host is rebooted following a NDU of Data ONTAP,
the Plug-N-Play service in Windows 2008 EE or DCE will assume the
device is a new disk and therefore set it offline, if the SAN Policy is the
default Offline Shared.
Both the Data ONTAP DSM and the Microsoft DSM will be affected by the
change in the revision field and the virtual disks will be offline after the
NDU and a subsequent host reboot.
In systems without MPIO, the Revision field is not part of the LUN
identifier and these systems will not be affected.
If the host (clustered or standalone) is shut down for a disruptive upgrade,
the virtual disks will appear offline when the system is restarted.

See Microsoft's TechNet article.

In the instance of the LUN revision changing, Windows 2008 sees the disks as
'new' disks and treats them as such. This behavior is also seen in newly created
LUNs mapped to a Windows 2008 server from FilerView or the CLI.
Disks shown as offline in Windows 2008 can also happen with iSCSI disks in a
vfiler, which are being migrated or DR'd (the Host is down during the vfiler
migrate) from a Data ONTAP 7.3.3 or earlier version to a Data ONTAP 7.3.3 or
later version. After the Host reboot, the virtual disks all come back offline.
Solution
There are several options:
1. Use the Disruptive Upgrade process to upgrade Data ONTAP.
2. Use SnapDrive to disconnect/reconnect drives, as it will automate the
process of bringing drives online.
3. Do nothing and online the drives manually in diskpart or disk management
GUI.
For systems with large amount of LUNs, performing this step in Disk

Management or using diskpart can be cumbersome, since the disks can only
be brought online one at a time.
Perform the following steps to automate this process:
i. Copy the following into a text file.
ii. Name the file online_all_disks.ps1 and save it where it can be
accessed.
iii. Open Windows PowerShell (right-click and run as administrator).
iv. Navigate to the location of the newly created file and run the script.
This script will both online the disk and clear the readonly flag on the
disk, if it exists.
$LUN = gwmi win32_diskdrive | where {$_.model -like "netapp*"}
foreach ($disk in $LUN)
{$diskID = $disk.index
$dpscript = @"
select disk $diskID
online disk noerr
attrib disk clear readonly
"@
$dpscript | diskpart}

To prevent this issue entirely:

For hosts that fall within the above conditions, set the SAN Policy to 'Online
All' prior to the Data ONTAP upgrade. This will prevent the virtual disks
from dropping offline after a reboot.
Once the host is rebooted, the SAN Policy can be changed back to the
default setting of 'Offline Shared'.

Incase this happens due to iSCSI disks in a vfiler that are being migrated or DR'd
from an earlier to a later version of Data ONTAP 7.3.3, there is no workaround,
unless a disruptive upgrade is performed from the source first, which causes the
same issue. In this case, removing MPIO (at least for iSCSI) would be a workable
adjustment.
Related Links:

Microsoft article on Hyper-V Server SAN Policy

Microsoft article on Media is Write Protected
VMWare article: Upgrading virtual hardware in ESX 4 may cause Windows
2008 disks to go offline

Former KB ID: 54672

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