Forum Discussion

Brass Contributor

Jan 12, 2022

Solved

ReFS volume appears RAW (version doesn't match expected value) after Windows Update

After Windows Update last night, Windows Server 2019 wouldn't mount a storage space volume as ReFS (it appears as RAW). The error in the ReFS event log is "ReFS failed to mount the volume. Version 1....

refs

storage

windows server

MikeLabatt
Jan 12, 2022
I solved this by uninstalling KB5009557. The ReFS volume came back working as it should, instead of appearing as RAW.

Update: since even the February 2022 Windows Update bricks ReFS in the same way, and hints from Microsoft are that ReFS 1.x is no longer supported, we copied everything to new disks, upgrading ReFS from 1.2 to 3.4 in the process. Such a (manual) ReFS upgrade should be the solution that everyone needs, allowing to re-enable Windows Update.

stephc_msft

Microsoft

Jan 25, 2022

The main issue is there are various versions of REFS
ReFS v1 as used on Server 2012R2 and ReFS v3 used on later OS's
The Updated fix, for Refs on removable drives, only addresses the ReFS v3 case and does not (and never will) address the refsv1 case.
Note that some disks, even on later OS's might be using ReFS v1 if they were originally set up on earlier systems
And so the fix will not help on those disks on those systems
Since its mainly VMWare VM's that are affected, as they consider hotplug disks as removable, suggest using the vmware devices.hotplug solution described earlier

You can check the Refs version with
fsutil fsinfo refsinfo x:
(although cant do this if the drive is currently showing as RAW)

ncage

Copper Contributor

Jan 27, 2022

Even though your post was helpful I have to shake my head at how sad it is how Microsoft treats its customers now. Do you not care about your onprem customers now? Who do you think knows what version of ReFS they were running? Should I worry about what version of NTFS or FAT32 i'm running or maybe Microsoft will say sorry your SOL version 3.2 of NTFS is no longer supported and our update broke it and we aren't going to fix it. So next time I upgrade my OS do I have to reformat every drive I have or worry this will happen again?

This screw-up almost cost me to lose data (almost formatted the drive because I thought it was corrupt) and you should be appologizing rather than pretty. much publically telling everyone sorry your SOL. At least you should have a utility to upgrade your ReFS version (if possible) or maybe at least warn users? This is really inexcusable. The only thing good about it I guess is it's lit a fire under me to get every piece of Microsoft out of our infrastructure that I can.