help needed with server 2003 std edition

humaxf1

Hi all,

First I will say is, I have little or now experience with Server 2003, but have worked on SBS 2003 but am no expert by any means!

I have been asked to take a goo at a Server 2003 Standard Edition machine. Version is 5.2 with SP2 applied.

The HDD is partitioned c:\ 14GB;6GB free - \ 22GB;582MB free. The crux of the problem is that the \ drive is low on space. Currently there are 100 odd user accounts (not all in use at the same time) and space is at a premium for users saving to their my documents which reside on \.

The structure on D is as follows: (bold text denotes if the folder is shared)

\userdata\administrators
\userdata\instructors (within here are folders for each instructor)
\userdata\students (within here are folders for each student)

\userdocuments\instructor\ (within here are folders for each instructor)
\userdocuments\student\ (within here are folders for each student)

\userprofiles\ (within here are folders for all users)

When I try to access the "home" folder for each user to move it to a bigger slave drive, a message comes up ACCESS DENIED! How can this be if I'm logged in as administrator?

I did a google on redirecting each users "my documents". It says to launch group policy editor and navigate to User Settings | Windows Settings | Folder Redirection Problem is, folder redirection option is not there.

I have suggested that I alter the user properties as follows: Profile tab->home folder->Connect U:\ path \\server01\redirection\"user name folder" I have created this path on a bigger slave drive to take the pressure off drive \. Then login on a single workstation PC as each user and "move" their "my documents" to their respective folder within \\server\redirection. This change does not propogate to other PCs though (they dont always sit at the same PC) ie, when they "save as" in say Word within my documents, it still saves to D drive on the server. In this case they would have to navigate to their U:\ mapped drive.

The response to this was that the users are not very tech savvy and (this sounds crazy) would be difficult to get them to navigate to the U:\ drive from now on. What the "powers to be" would like is all "my documents" for everyone copied to the slave drive and for them save their work in "my documents" as if nothing has changed!

Is their a way to do this? Just thinking about it now, could I take a ghost image of drive \ and then image the slave drive in turn to get over the ACCESS DENIED error. Then instead of mapping/using the Connect U:\ drive option, choose the home folder section in profile tab and put in the slave drive path to their my documents folder? Would there be a problem then with the windows profile or would a new profile be created? Once the my documents is sorted to save on the bigger drive, I don't think a new profile would make too much difference.

Sorry if this is a bit long winded...if anyone needs some parts clarified, please ask. Thanks in advance for help offered.

ressem

Typically HOME shares will not be readable (listable perhaps) by administrator, only by Creator/Owner, by particular groups (Backup operators, or those created by your admin) or a similar scheme.

If you're not familiar with this stuff, then the easiest way to transfer the files while keeping the original security permissions intact might be to use the windows backup tool to create a file containing the required files, then choose the "restore to alternate location" option to place the files in the new location.
The default settings under Start Restore/ Advanced should have "restore security" enabled.

Capt'n Midnight

or you could take control

cacls *.* /e /c /t /g administrator:f

humaxf1

thanks for all the info.

In the end, I installed an 80GB HDD and cloned the old drive to the new one using Acronis Migrate. Worked a treat.


Good call ressem on doing the backup and restore to another location...must remember that one.

Capt'n, tried the calcs command putting in specific paths to the user's "home" folders. A cmd box appeared and trundled through lots of files but still no access! There are quite a few users who have left, but their "my documents" are still present. This is what caused the space problem, or lack of, in the first place by not being able to access these folders to delete them.

They now have 20GB odd free space, so they will be ok for the time.

Bebop

normal practice is to create a \\servername\users folder with only admin permissions and then create a folder for each user below that
\\servername\users\%username$%
remove the "all users" default permission and give admins and the user full control of their folder, the $ at the end of the name will hide the folder from browsing

GoTo ADU&C
In the account properties of every user, set "connect to"
H:\\servername\%username$%..this can be done in one operation by selecting all the users/properties, users will see their H drive in "My Computer" [or you can use "U"]

you might think about setting disk quotas for your users if space is at a premium, also Admins must have access to home drives otherwise they fill up with jpeg's, MP3's, movies porn viruses etc, and the backup gets bigger each day..the main advantage of a home drive is allowing a secure backup of users data, Volume shadow copy is one of the best features of S2003..it allows users to restore their own files and keeps a daily snapshot for about 60 days

My documents can be redirected to the home drive using Folder Redirection in Group Policy