Fun with Microsoft's iSCSI Software Initiator Versions

Eariler today, doing some demo prep work. Part of the show includes Windows LUN expansions thru SnapDrive 5.0 for Windows Server 2003 SP2. Never got around to updating my Microsoft iSCSI Software Initator from 2.04 to 2.06.

Well, well, well...

Come to find out, Logical Disk Manager Administrative Service unexpectedly terminated. Then there's SnapDrive Vdisk "Service execution status" errors in the debug logs (HRESULT 0x1).

Interestingly, the actual ExpandVirtualDisk operation works in MS iSCSI init 2.04 -- you see the volume size increase. The only user-level issue is a little popup error.

Apparently, it's the last step before refreshing VDS. Users can take advantage of the extra LUN space, but dmadmin.exe (Logical Disk Mgr Admin Service) goes south (access violation) and VDS is now in an "incorrect" state -- funkytown !! FYI -- VDS error is: "Unexpected provider failure. Restarting the service may fix the problem. Error code: 80042420@0200003".

Also of interest -- I don't recall this problem under Service Pack 1 of 2k3. My hunch is new and/or reworked code under VDS and Service Pack 2.

Bottom-line: Your best bet is to ensure your SCSIport.sys (for iSCSI) is up-to-date (2.06) w/ SnapDrive 5.0.