Windows 2008 R2 Shares Disappear on Reboot

drobonetwork-sharewindowswindows-server-2008

Every time I reboot our Windows 2008 R2 server, shared folders are no longer shared. After every reboot, I need to RDC to the server, right click each folder I wish to share, then hit "Properties" and "Sharing." The desired share name is always intact, as are the proper permissions for Owner (always Administrator) and the appropriate R/W access I've previously set for groups and users. But the status shows as "Not Shared." If I press the "Share" button, it thinks for a while with the "This may take a few minutes" message, and then reports complete and the shares can be accessed from network clients again.

But on every reboot, I have to do this for every shared folder.

I've read about similar issues with iSCSI drives, but all the shares are on a Drobo connected to the server via FireWire and appearing as a local drive to the server (not iSCSI). I suspect the fact that the shares are on a Drobo are contributing to the issue, but I'm stumped as to where to start looking for a long-term fix, rather than a work-around.

Thanks in advance!

Best Answer

Found a solution!

I went through the currently running services to see if I could find any that looked promising, and found DDService, which is the Drobo Dashboard. I added it as an additional dependency to the Server service by doing the following from an elevated command prompt:

sc config LanmanServer depend= SamSS/Srv/DDServer

(SamSS and Srv were previous dependencies)

Rebooted the server, and crossed my fingers...

The shares went offline from the client while the server rebooted, then came back about 30 seconds after the server started to respond to pings.

I don't know if there's a better dependent service than DDServer, but it seems to work!

EDIT: All the information to fix this issue is contained in this answer, but I just finished writing up a more detailed description of the cause and fix (along with screen-caps) on my blog here, just in case anyone wants some more hand-holding.

http://www.stevejenkins.com/blog/2016/01/fix-missing-shares-on-windows-2008-server-reboot-with-drobo/