2000 & 2003 server losing data files

catsystems · 16th February 2006

Help....!!!

Sorry this is a bit of a long one but this is driving us nuts...!!! and I hope it will help anybody else experiencing the same problem or at least forewarn them if anybody has an answer.

We have a client that has both a 2000 & a 2003 server that are not on the same network but both for some strange reason and at random times of the year perhaps 3 or 4 just lose a whole section of their data files. eg they have a folder called \\admin of which is subfolders a,b,c,d, etc into which is created the name of their client into which they store the relevant data for that client all in alpahbetical order. The data typically comprises *.docs, *.xls, *.pdf etc.

Layout:-

e:\Admin
\A
\aardvark
\ armstrong
\ etc......
\B
\barclay
\bradley
\etc.......
\C
\etc.....

For some totally unknown reason that we can not understand, a whole chunk of this Admin folder should vanish. It has happened today where they lost everything from Folders A to D and had to restore from tape. When this occurs it is random as to how many folders it will zap. Sometimes 2 sometimes as many as 12 however
the Admin folder always stays put. We have catagorically ruled out users deleting them, Virus and any spyware influence. The only common denominator is that most of the documents are stored with the _ (underscore) eg. fred_jones.doc or bill_smith holidays.xls etc.

We manage a large number of servers and have never come across anything like this and MS can offer us no help. I have only come across one other article similar to this where the conditions were somewhat similar to that described above. He managed to recreate the problem but had no resolution for it...

I would be most gratefull for any ideas....

Thanks in advance