Windows 2003 cluster physical disk resource

Hi,
I just want to know what would be the best steps to follow to change drive letters on a shared physical disk resources in a windows cluster ?

here is what I am planning to do.
I need to replace Drive E: with new larger Drive I:. Both are currently in the cluster and online. Drive E: has a SQL dependency. Can I change the drive letters through disk managament while the disks are online in cluster ?

Any suggestions would be greately appreciated

Thanks,

Responses(3)

dynamox

2 Intern

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20.4K Posts

0

October 14th, 2009 11:00

Windows clustering relies on disk signatures so drive letter swapping would not work. I would shutdown application/sql, shutdown other members of the cluster and just leave one up, robocopy data from E:\ to I:\ , delete E:\ physical disk resources, recreate it but point to drive letter I:\. Always have a fresh backup copy available

Joe_Ab

227 Posts

0

October 27th, 2009 03:00

Open Replicator will make things easier for you , do you have it ?

SamCl

54 Posts

0

August 11th, 2010 00:00

The cluster does indeed rely on signatures to identify the disk resources - however you can change the drive letters. I would recommend the following

1) disable SQL services in services

2) remove all dependencies on the 2 drive letters in cluster

3) remove the disks from cluster

4) disable cluster and reboot on all nodes (one by one)

5) change the drive letters at the OS level.on all nodes (one by one)

6) re-enable cluster and reboot

7) add the drives back in assigning the 'new' drive letters

8) test failover etc.

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Windows 2003 cluster physical disk resource