Question : Mac Users suddenly have no access to Win Server 2003 Mac AFP/SFM Shared Volumes

Hello-

I am having a problem with Mac shared volumes from my Windows Server 2003. This issue has already been addressed on Experts in 2008 in this link: http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Server/2003_Server/Q_23219577.html?sfQueryTermInfo=1+10+2003+30+mac+server+share+volum

This link describes my problem exactly (except that in my case, an overnight storm knocked out the power to my server). Briefly, the Mac file sharing (SFM/AFP, not SMB) has been funcitoning flawlessly on this server for the past 20-30 months. Last night the server shutdown suddenly (power outage). After rebooting this morning, all Windows users have access to SMB shares, no Mac users have access to the SMB/AFP shared volumes (except for the Microsoft UAM Share? I'm not sure why this works but none of the others do...). Mac users CAN access SMB volumes though.

The server is not generating any error events of any kind. The shares are properly configured; the configuration is the same as it was yesterday when everything was working properly. Also, the previous user to post to Experts on this issue solved it by simply giving up and creating new AFP shared volumes on another Windows Server 2003 box at his site; I do not have that luxury.

I have examined the following links and these do not seem to pertain to my problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/147909/en-us (Under Method 5, like the previous user that posted to experts on this problem, my server is not generating the Event Log message that this KB says to expect)
http://allinthehead.com/retro/218/accessing-a-windows-2003-share-from-os-x
http://hinkle.wordpress.com/2007/10/27/leopard-problems-active-directory-integration-now-fixed/
http://www.macwindows.com/Win2003.html#082806a

Also, thanks in advance to any suggestions that we switch to SMB. There are Line of Business apps that still require OS 9, which we have running through OS X right now. The OS 9 apps do not recognize files through SMB. Also, this site uses folder color coding for their processes, also an AFP function.

Thanks for your help.
CTSMKE

Answer : Mac Users suddenly have no access to Win Server 2003 Mac AFP/SFM Shared Volumes

This issue seems to be resolved. Here are the notes that I wrote up in our internal system regarding this incident:

User reported the server went down last night due to a power outage. After rebooting the server, the AFP/SFM shared volumes were not accessible to the Macs, but the SMB volumes (even the same folders) were accessible to both PCs and Macs. The server did not show any error messages in the logs regarding this issue. I was not able to find any configuration settings that were not correct (none had been changed), but the AFP/SFM volumes starting coming back on their own one at a time, with the Production volume (320GB) coming back after five hours from the boot time. It would seem the server needed to recreate a AFP/SFM index, but I do not know which one, how to monitor its progress, or how to initiate it should it fail to come back the next time.

It looks like I got lucky and the server fixed itself. Thanks for your help though.