Moving Windows 2008r2 Cluster Shares without DFS

You can move Windows 2008r2 cluster shares without the need for DFS.

It goes a little something like this

Data copy

I used emcopy to move all data from the existing sahre to the newly added share as it copies all and sundry. Quickly. Ill not go through these steps.

 

Adding Disk to services

Add in a new cluster disk , assign it to a new file server service that belongs to the existing file server role. Bring it all online , allocating a drive letter as you see fit

Add a file share to the existing shared disk. Give it a unique name ( you will see why later )

Add a file share to the newly added disk, again give it a new unique name.

 

 

Identifying Shares

Open regedit.

Search for the unique name on the existing share. Go slightly higher up the registry tree. Note parameters subkey. Note above that there is a long , long key. Copy that long identifier into notepad. Mark it something like existing share and finally paste in the long value

Repeat for the new share.

Save the notepad file just in case.

 

Moving Shares

Go back to regedit

Export the existing registry key from the long name. Name its something like ITS ALL GONE WRONG I NEED TO GET TO A SAFE PLACE.reg

Copy the reg file and paste it. Therefore duplicating it. Rename it Migration

Open/Edit it in notepad.

Replace every instance of the existing long key with the newly added key ( for the new drive ) you identified earlier. You are effectively here spoofing the old disk name with the new disk name

Replace every instance of the existing drive letter with the new shared disk. Save the newly tampered with reg file.

Take a brave pill now.

Drop all the share with the Manager shares and storage. You will be warned about dropping admin shares. Dont drop those.

Import the reg file you tampered with earlier.

Offline both Disk drives

Offline both file servers

Bring the Disk Drives back on

Bring the File server back on.

Hope and wait.

You should now have all the shares on the newly added drive. All the shares will have been dropped on the existing drive that we can assume will be retired

 

You *must* restart the cluster services on the passive node to refresh the passive nodes registry.

 

That should be it. I eyeballed the Shared Folder #client connections.

 

If you really , really want to use the old drive letter that was in existence, and I havent tested this : drop the now disused cluster disk from the failover cluster manager , re add a new RDM or independent persistent eager zero’d disk and allocate it the desired drive letter.

Do the same migration process detailed above.