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December 6th, 2007 08:00

Can I install Power Path software if the devices already have data?

Can I install Power Path software if the devices already have data?
We have a Windows 2000 server installed 3 year ago. It has performance issue now. We found out it has not install Power Path software. We want to install PowerPath to improve the performance. But we do not want to have data loss. What's your suggestion?

419 Posts

December 6th, 2007 08:00

Installing Powerpath will not cause data loss. Powerpath does not touch the data already on the drives

8 Posts

December 6th, 2007 08:00

Yes, The server has two HBAs.

2 Intern

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20.4K Posts

December 6th, 2007 08:00

PowerPath seat below windows driver ..so should be no problem. Do your system have dual HBAs ? I am suprised you have not experience corruption if they are connected to two path on the storage side.

8 Posts

December 6th, 2007 08:00

Thank you so much.

39 Posts

December 6th, 2007 13:00

Windows 2000 does not handle multiple paths well without PowerPath, so if the host has been running multiple paths without PowerPath you need to run a chdsk on each of those volumes to check for filesystem issues. Do a backup beforehand, in case chkdsk does find issues.

2 Intern

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5.7K Posts

December 11th, 2007 06:00

I am wondering about the 2 HBA's which are in use up until now, since Windows usually does a great job corrupting data is there's no PPath available. Windows sees 2 disks, which are in fact the same lun, but it tries to put a signature on both... I've seen problems with this in the past.

On the other hand: I've also seen hosts with this issue (no PPath installed) where somehow a lun is only seen just once. Never found out why Windows only say the lun once instead of a few times, one for each HBA.

January 30th, 2008 04:00

indeed, you might need to restart the server once after deploying the PowerPath

2 Intern

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5.7K Posts

January 31st, 2008 01:00

You DO need a reboot. PPath asks for it, so you can't miss it.
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