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Microsoft: Server Manager disk resets can lead to data loss

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Microsoft: Server Manager disk resets can lead to data loss​

  • October 26, 2022
  • 08:00 AM ET
  • 0

Windows

Microsoft warns that a newly acknowledged issue can lead to data loss when resetting virtual disks using the Server Manager management console.
Server Manager helps IT admins manage Windows-based servers from their desktops without requiring a Remote Desktop connection or physical access to the servers.
Because of this issue, admins attempting to reset (or clear) a virtual disk might accidentally reset the wrong disk, leading to data corruption.
They will also see "Failed to reset disk" errors in the Task Progress dialog window, with the 'Found multiple disks with same ID. Please update your storage driver and then try again.' error message.
"When you use the Community Virtual driver, there are virtual disks that might have the same UniqueId. This might create issues when you initiate a reset operation," Microsoft explains in a new support document.
"The reset operation will reset the first disk that it finds. However, this might not be the disk you want to reset. Because of this, that disk will lose data."
This known issue impacts the following client and server Windows platforms: Windows Server 2019, Windows Server 2022, and Windows 11 22H2.
Virtual disk reset failure
Virtual disk reset failure (Microsoft)

Workaround available​

Microsoft provides a workaround for admins who encounter this known issue, allowing them to reset virtual disks without data loss risks.
To do that, you can use the following PowerShell commands to retrieve the disk's DeviceID across available Storage Management Providers and clear the disk by removing all partition info and un-initializing it, thus erasing all data on the disk:
  1. To retrieve details about the disks, type Get-PhysicalDisk | Select-Object -Property FriendlyName, DeviceID, UniqueId
  2. Confirm the details about the disk that you want to reset. Use the disk's DeviceId as the Number in the command: Clear-Disk [-Number] <UInt32[]>
You can find more information on how to use the two commands on the Get-PhysicalDisk and Clear-Disk support documents.
On Monday, Microsoft also released preview cumulative updates to address another known issue preventing the vulnerable driver blocklist from being synced to systems running older Windows versions.
 
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