Terminal Services and Disk Management

I had the craziest problem the last 2 months. On one of my two Windows Server 2003 with VMware Server boxes I was not able to mount and format any volumes on our EqualLogic iSCSI SAN. I troubleshot this from every angle and Googled every possible phrase. I just could not figure it out. I finally broke down and called Microsoft Professional Support last week and spent 4 hours on the phone with Microsoft. They tried everything and could not figure out a solution. The tech finally suggested that I log on locally to the server and the problem was fixed. All drives mounted and formatted successfully.

I do 95% of my server management through the Terminal Services Client (MSTSC) and almost never at the console. I was told a couple times before that some operations could only be done at the console and not through MSTSC. I honestly thought those techs were full of crap and were trying pass on a tough service call. To get around this issue you can also run MSTSC with the /console switch "mstsc /console". You may also run the console switch if you were logged into a console session on a server and need to remote desktop to that session.

Comments

[Isaack]

I've been through the same pain, you should have blogged it and I've could have told you about the fix :)

Some programs still seem to be able to detect MSTSC and still refuse(or fail) to work properly. They are very rare though.

[Angela Atwood]

Why would it take FOUR hours on the phone with Microsoft. Why does it always take so long???
InfinitelyVirtual.com

[Beats by dr dre headphones]

Why would it take FOUR hours on the phone with Microsoft. Why does it always take so long???