How to Distinguish a Physical Disk Device from an Event Message

ID: Q159865

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows NT Operating System version 3.1
Microsoft Windows NT Advanced Server version 3.1
Microsoft Windows NT Workstation versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0
Microsoft Windows NT Server versions 3.5, 3.51, 4.0

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about editing the registry. Before you edit the registry, make sure you understand how to restore it if a problem occurs. For information about how to do this, view the "Restoring Registry Key" Help topic in Regedit.exe or the "Restoring a Registry Key" Help topic in Regedt32.exe.

SUMMARY

Windows NT may report event messages in the event log for various hard disk device problems using the following syntax:

The device, \Device\Harddisk#\Partition #

The following are examples of some common event log message entries:

The device, \Device\Harddisk0\Partition 1, has a bad block.

The device, \Device\HardDisk1\Partition0, has been reset.

System process lost, delayed, write data
System was attempting to transfer file data from buffers to \\device\harddisk4\partition2\mydir\myfile.txt
The write operation failed.

An error occurred while attempting to recover data from the fault tolerance set containing \device\harddisk2\FT1

In each of the preceding examples you need to translate the hard disk number to a physical drive on the system. You can determine the hard disk number by looking in the registry, but you need to know if you are using IDE drives, SCSI drives or a combination of the two. Disk Administrator will display the drives in the order they are enumerated on each controller and in the order that the controller device drivers are loaded. If you are using multiple controllers, the order in which they are identified is based on I/O port and controller BIOS address assignments.

WARNING: Using Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that problems resulting from the incorrect use of Registry Editor can be solved. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

For information about how to edit the registry, view the "Changing Keys And Values" Help topic in Registry Editor (Regedit.exe) or the "Add and Delete Information in the Registry" and "Edit Registry Data" Help topic in Regedt32.exe. Note that you should back up the registry before you edit it.

Run Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe).

From the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE Window, click Hardware\Devicemap\Atdisk (for IDE based devices)


      Controller0  look at the controller address and interrupt.
         disk0  look at identifier string for manufacturer and model#
         disk1  look at identifier string for manufacturer and model#
      Controller1 look at the controller address and interrupt.
         disk0  look at identifier string for manufacturer and model#
         disk1  look at identifier string for manufacturer and model#

Click Hardware\Devicemap\SCSI (For Atapi compliant or SCSI devices)


      Scsiport0  look at driver, Interrupt, and IOAddress
         Scisbus0
            Targetid0
            Logical Unit Id 0   look at identifier and type.
            Targetid1
            Logical Unit Id 0   look at identifier and type.
            Targetid4
            Logical Unit Id 0   look at identifier and type.
         Scsibus1
            Targetid0
            Logical Unit Id 0   look at identifier and type.
            Targetid1
            Logical Unit Id 0   look at identifier and type.
            Targetid2
            Logical Unit Id 0
         Scsiport1  look at driver, Interrupt and I/O Address.
         Scsibus0
            Targetid0
            Logical Unit Id 0   look at identifier and type.

Using the information gathered from the registry, you can determine which physical drive maps to a particular disk number in Disk Administrator.

Using the "identifier" and "type" values, determine which entries are for DISKS and which are for other devices such as CD-ROMS, tapes, scanners, and so forth.

Find each Type:REG_SZ:DiskPeripheral entry under the Targetid#\Logicalunitid0. Each one found equates to a drive in Disk Administrator and also to a \device\harddisk number.

To find \device\harddisk5 find the 6th DiskPeripheral (zero through five).

Make note of the SCSIPORT, SCSIBUS, and TARGETID# and use this to replace the defective device.

SCSIPORT is a SCSI controller.
SCSIBUS is a channel on the SCSI controller. Some controllers are dual channel and have SCSIBUS0 and SCSIBUS1.
TARGETID is the SCSI ID the device that is configured to use usually 0 through 6, with the initiator ID 7 representing the controller itself.

If you have doubts about which SCSIPORT represents which SCSI Controller look at the driver, I/O Address, and Interrupt of the SCSIPORT entry and match it with the hardware configuration set on the controller.

For IDE Devices, the drives are in master/slave configuration order on each controller.

Additional query words: event id: 7 the device has a bad block 3.10


Keywords          : nthowto ntfault NTSrvWkst 
Version           : WinNT:3.1,3.5,3.51,4.0
Platform          : winnt 
Issue type        :

Last Reviewed: January 30, 1999