Problem with DFS Replica - Any expert please help?

Question

I have DFS on windows 2000 servers.

3 replicas have been created but data is not being synchronised. So, the users are presently accessing the conventional shared folder, instead of DFS share.

All I wanted is the data is properly updated among all the replicas and the contents should be same. That was the purpose of using DFS share after all.

Please help

Answer 1

Look in your event logs, under both application and system. This should contain the reason why the DFS is failling. It will be under the heading of NTFRS.

Most common reason for unexplained failures is:

DNS: DNS must be working correctly for the computers to find one another

Hard Disk almost full: There must be 15% free space MINIMUM on ALL drives used for DFS root. This means a 100 GB hard drive MUST have a whopping 15 GB of free space.

If none of this helps, then as a last ditch effort, try rebuilding the DFs from scratch.

1) Delete the DFS root
2) Unshare the folders
3) rename the folders
4) Create new shares
5) Build a new DFS root

A final question. Any particular reason you are using 3 copies of the data? I have never used more than two. With two copies and good backups you should never lose data.