Have you ever experienced the “Invalid file handle” error message when moving, copying or trying to delete files that reside on your Windows Home Server?
We have a couple of ways for you to correct this problem. The 1st is a blog entry on the site “My Name is better than yours” that takes you step by step through reassigning permissions on your home server.
The other is the Windows Home Server Cleanup Tool which tests if your home server files are readable. The .cmd file by catsaver is available with additional information from here.
March 20, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Why should anyone expect an “Invalid file handle” error message when moving, copying or trying to delete files that reside on your Windows Home Server?
Wasn’t “WHS data corruption” bad enough for us WHS users to experience, which remains unfixed and unresolved!
This is so typical of Microsoft, having us check to test rather than Microsoft to see if things will work right. How many more so called Microsoft WHS tools will be needed for testing by customers?
Wasn’t WHS suppose to be ready for consumers, or is that still for beta testers only mode?
Unfortunately, this “Invalid File Handle” tester still don’t resolve or provide the full answer as I quote from the source, “Sometimes the .cmd file still can’t delete the reparse points. That’s a problem I can’t solve. This seems to usually occur with filenames that use characters that are not native to the installed language on your WHS”.
This just shows once again how much tinkering WHS requires it’s users to experience as unpaid testers!!!
March 21, 2008 at 1:20 am
“Why should anyone expect an “Invalid file handle” error message when moving, copying or trying to delete files that reside on your Windows Home Server?”
I honestly can’t tell if this is a serious philosophical question or if it’s a joke.
March 21, 2008 at 2:49 pm
[...] WHS “Invalid file handle” Error Message – Help is at Hand [...]
March 22, 2008 at 1:41 am
Just keep using WHS and you’ll soon find out Aaron!
March 22, 2008 at 2:04 pm
Sure Doug, I’ll keep an eye out for that. I’ve been using WHS for several months and so far it’s only recovered about 2,000 important work emails in addition to serving three websites and streaming music/video/pics to my livingroom MCE. Despite everything just working, I suppose I should agree with the Johnna’s incoherent ramblings about WHS being beta quality because it has two bugs, and return the software. Thanks for the enlightenment!
March 23, 2008 at 8:10 pm
@Aaron Incoherent Ramblings? Just 2 bugs?
I suppose then the faulty algorithm in the WHS Drive Extender software doesn’t bother you? Especially, when it’s a proven design flaw that leads to data corruption.
You did read Microsoft KB 946676, right?
Microsoft has warned users of its new Windows Home Server that the device could corrupt data when saving files from certain applications. The results could ruin family photos, small-business records or anything else users save on the system.
Or how about, Windows Home Server nearly 2,400 bugs reported here:
http://www.neowin.net/index.php?act=view&id=39002
I don’t think anyone would be too happy with that. :(
or here: 3377 submitted by beta participants! :(
http://www.blogs.technet.com/homeserver/archive/2007/03/22/entomophobia.aspx
In addition, Windows Home Server advertises that you can remotely control the PC’s you have in your home. But, unless you read the fine print, which isn’t advertised in an easy to find up front label at the time of purchase, WHS doesn’t support Remote Desktop to Vista Home Premium 32bit edition (or even Vista 64bit) unlike Windows XP Tablet, Media Center Edition, and XP Professional with Service Pack 2.
Which I had upgraded from XP Pro to Vista Home Premium, thinking what was advertised and promised by Windows Home Server to remote control my newest Vista Home “Premium” edition PC, which wasn’t the case at all.
WHS is just like Vista, in that many things were promised, but in reality I am NOT able to actually use WHS as advertised.
Failure to deliver what was promised…
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2209837,00.asp
March 24, 2008 at 1:54 am
Nice, thanks for the article that shows 2,400 bugs filed during beta. Not sure exactly what point you’re trying to prove there as this article was authored halfway through the beta program. The other link you provided is broken, but by your description it appears to have the same irrelevant information.
As for your Remote Desktop issue with Vista Home Premium: Let me see if I understand this correctly, you expected WHS to magically provide Remote Desktop server functionality to your Vista Home Premium machine even though Vista Home Premium doesn’t contain Remote Desktop? Not much fine print there, any basic feature comparison between vista editions would show you that quite clearly. But it can’t be *your* fault.
And by the way, of course I’ve heard about the data corruption bug. After all, you guys can’t stop talking about it. Like everyone else, I’m disappointed that it hasn’t been fixed yet but at least we know it’ll be fixed in June. It really doesn’t bother me right now because I have a single hard drive and since you’re so familiar with the issue then surely you know that it only affects machines with more than one drive in situations where you choose to edit files on the server…. right? Anyway, what does bother me is all of you people who use this bug as a launching pad for junk like you’ve posted above.
March 24, 2008 at 11:36 am
Sigh…. This just happened to me yesterday, after lots of head scratching I found this article and cleanup utility… Many thanks to the author….. Voodoo curses to the WHS team!!!
Lee
Unsuspecting WHS / EX470 β tester
March 28, 2008 at 5:01 am
Who says it’s going to be fixed by June 2008? Regarding the WHS data corruption design flaw? It’s already been more than year later, and if you only count since WHS was sold as retail, that’s been 5 months ago, with another 3 months more!
By that time, WHS version two could be released! So in the mean time just don’t use your server as a server! Don’t copy, edit or open WHS files from your PC.
I’m not even sure if the backup files I got now are actually data corruption free? If I listen to Microsoft, we all can see how they waited, and waited and only then stated there’s a glitch. Who can say if that’s the only one, as how many more bugs haven’t been fixed?
Then again, who actually is willing to believe that only one hard drive is totally immune from the proven data corruption design flaw? What happens if you try to use more than one client PC at the same time?
I’m tired of being a beta testers when I paid good money for a complete working and should be proven edition of a software program coming from an well established business.
Get it fixed, we already paid for this to be working!
March 29, 2008 at 2:33 pm
Adrian, it’s clear that you do not understand the issue and have not bothered to read the KB article, otherwise you’d see this:
“A bug has been discovered in the way that Windows Home Server manages file transfer and balancing across multiple hard drives. ”
And this:
“This issue can now be reliably reproduced, and a fix is in development. Microsoft intends to release beta test versions of a fix over the next few months, with a final version currently planned for June 2008.”
Oh, and you’d also see this:
“December 21, 2007 Original publication date
December 28, 2007 Updated the article to document more information about the scenario in which this issue occurs
January 9, 2008 Updated the article to indicate that Microsoft can reproduce the issue and is currently working on a fix
February 20, 2008 Changed the original publication date to the correct date. Updated the list of applications in the Symptoms section. Provided an updated status.
March 6, 2008 Provided updated information about symptoms, cause, status and guidance.”
So just about everything you’ve said has been invalidated.
Cheers,
Aaron
April 18, 2008 at 12:58 pm
Gotta say – I’m also getting very frustrated with data corruption issues on my WHS. I started discovering that what I thought to be safe and sound copies of my files (software and backup copies of document files) are now inaccessible due to “Invalid File Handle” errors. Only just discovered this after trying to retrieve a document, but have now discovered 5 whole folders of approx 30MB are inaccessible… and I have these folders duplidated for safety!!!????.
Will try the suggested fixes, but really am starting to wonder if I’ll be able to trust this “drive extender” technology.
Come on Microsoft – get your a into g and fix it !!!
May 7, 2008 at 4:25 am
Well good greef. just found out that i have 70GB of unaccessable music. good job microsoft. lucky for me i had all of my music on my laptop. I’m using the cleanup tool to scan my other files right now hopefully i won’t have anymore problems.
on a different note i still can’t get the connector software to work and i can’t remote access any of my computers. well I’m a little confused shouldn’t something that is ment to be in a home enviroment be easy to setup and use and not mess up the stuff you put on it.
July 7, 2008 at 11:08 pm
There is a fix, if you search into the forums. Can’t guarantee it will work for you, but here it is: http://forums.microsoft.com/WindowsHomeServer/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=2614910&SiteID=50
Short vers: command prompt type:
fsultil fsutil reparsepoint delete
It works for me best using the full path and file name. Then I could access the file. However, some were corrupted at this point, and couldn’t be saved, so, use at your own risk.
July 7, 2008 at 11:08 pm
er, not fsutil fsutil, just
fsutil reparsepoint delete “FileName”
August 6, 2009 at 11:24 am
I was looking for an explanation and I found this forum where one guy is just happy with Microsoft. Everybody is frustrated nut he is happy. I found problems with invalid handles reported by WHS trying to backup or replicate some files. All I could do was to delete them. They are just occupying space on the disk for nothing. I see there are ways and even tools to get rid of this invalid handles BUT this is not a solution. THIS IS A DISASTER. Microsoft gave us the knife and now is forcing us to cut our vanes. I don’t want to delete files which I put there to be safe. What is wrong with this happy guy?? We bought the Home Server to have a simple backup space for our precious data. This is the simplest scenario that MS presented to dell this joke of OS. Now We have to use something else to backup the data that was backed up in the WHS. Yes now I understand why there is the capability to backup the server data . . . What is wrong with this happy guy??
A few days ago the server refused to connect. It just disappeared. Took one full day to get access back by reinstalling, fiddling, reconfiguring re re re… and that was my weekend.
Why did I bother? Because the data on the hard drives CAN NOT BE RECOVERED unless you have the original machine running. THINK ABOUT THAT you happy with MS guy. If the hardware that’s running the OS on the WMS that you happily own fails ALL your data is GONE…. What is wrong with this happy guy anyway??
Is people like this that keep businesses like MS afloat . . .
December 15, 2009 at 8:24 am
Please help!!!
I can’t print using RDP. The printer in the RDP environment was installed through network printer sharing.
when i try to print using RDP ” The Handle is Invalid”.
Any ideas?
April 26, 2010 at 9:11 pm
I’m on Windows Server 2008, and I’ve noticed this error when saving a file from Firefox or Chrome with the following steps:
- Right-click and save image as to a network folder
- try to copy and paste that image file to your desktop
- Boom! “Invalid File Handle”
IE does this without issue, so I wonder if it has something to do with the way these other browsers and programs are writing the file data to disk.