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WorkBot
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 “Siamese Twin” PCs?
DataCenter, Networking
Hi Gentle People, I have something new and wonderful to share. One of my team members went to an office today to install software to old-fashioned way (by CD). The application uses ODBC drivers to access a shared database (engine & data files) on a server. The LAN is a Win2K AD domain with multiple member servers and XP client PCs. Two specific PCs have a strange link between them I have not seen before. If you install the ODBC drivers & create the required DSNs on PC "A" they automagically appear on PC "B", yet if you test the DSN from PC "B" it fails. It is almost as if PC "B" is using the C-drive of PC "A" as its own. I am going there tomorrow to see this for myself, but has anyone out there seen this before? Any ideas what can cause this behavior? I will accept any idea or feedback, Thanks.

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ASKED: June 27, 2006  9:09 PM
UPDATED: June 29, 2006  9:41 AM
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I once looked after a company that had a single pc which had a proprietry board installed which allowed 2 people with a keyboard, mouse and monitor each to act as though they had individual PC's. Although this is slightly different to what you are describing I wonder if a similiar setup has been used. Your coleague might have seen what he thought was 2 PC's but was actually only one.
Last Wiki Answer Submitted:  June 28, 2006  5:06 am  by  Bridgeman   25 pts.
All Answer Wiki Contributors:  Bridgeman   25 pts.
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Thanks for you reply Bridgeman, but there are definetly 2 PCs involved here.

Here is a thought – What would happen if the system volume on PC “A” was mirrored to a volume on PC “B”, and that volume on PC “B” was subsequently set as the system volume of PC “B”?

In other words the system volumes of each PC was set as a remote mirror of the other?

Any thoughts anyone?

WorkBot
 0 pts.
 

Maybe a file syncronization program running.

nielsenr
 0 pts.
 

Hmm interesting,

Is your client using roaming profiles which may account for the user dsns dropping to the system but since the drivers aren’t installed….the connection fails?

DigitalNomad
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Yes, roaming profiles is the only way I can see this happening.. and explains the failure. Two seperate PC’s could not boot from a single shared volume as certain files would be looked so whichever PC got there first would boot ok.. but the other would fail.

Interesting one though!

Ursulus

Ursulus
 0 pts.
 

Hi Everyone,

I have been involved in desktop support for several years and this sounds similar to some of the stranger mistakes I have made. Once when I was cloning a hard drive I put the disk to be cloned into a second system and booted with out the floppy in place. The resultant start up combined both NT 4.0 SP 6 systems (both partitions were active for boot) although they were similar the profiles for users which were on both ended up mixed. Another time I installed an OS on D: and tried to move the system to C: resulting in a strange system can?t find the dll until I copied the WIN directory to D:. If one were to install from a PC the second would go looking for files on the other. What if you install an application from one users profile into another on another PC? Maybe when ever the second PC activates the Profile it would go look at the first?s.

TNGeorge
 0 pts.