Disk Management does not display any disks on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems

On a computer that is running Microsoft Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based Systems, Disk Management does not display any disks. This problem occurs if the following conditions are true:

• Multiple page files are present on the computer.
• A page file that is not the most recently created page file resides in a path that is not the root of a partition.

When this problem occurs, the following events are logged in the System log:

Event ID: 1

Event Type: Error
Event Source: VDS Basic Provider 1.0
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: N/A
Computer: ComputerName
Description:
Unexpected failure. Error code: 80000002@01040008

Event ID: 17

Event Type: Error
Event Source: Virtual Disk Service
Event Category: None
Event ID: 17
Date: Date
Time: Time
User: N/A
Computer: ComputerName
Description:
VDS fails to launch provider {CA7DE14F-5BC8-48FD-93DE-A19527B0459E}. Error code: 90000002@02000012

This problem occurs because the Virtual Disk Service cannot start.

When Disk Management starts, it tries to start the Virtual Disk Service. However, when the operating system kernel is called to retrieve page file information, a pointer in the operating system kernel is not aligned correctly. Therefore, the Virtual Disk Service cannot start.

To work around this problem, make sure that the path of each page file meets either of the following requirements:

• The page file is located in the root of a partition.
• Excluding the root, but including the backslash character, the length of the page file path has a length that is a multiple of 8 characters.

For example, you can create the following page files:

• C:\Pagefile.sys
  
  The page file is located in the root of a partition.
• C:\1234567\Pagefile.sys
  
  The length of "1234567\" is 8 characters.
• C:\1234567\1234567\Pagefile.sys
  
  The length of "1234567\1234567\" is 16 characters.
• C:\1234567-1234567\Pagefile.sys
  
  The length of "1234567-1234567\" is 16 characters.
• C:\ abc\123-456\def\Pagefile.sys
  
  The length of "abc\123-456\def\" is 16 characters.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed in the "Applies to" section.