Question
When AutoMount is turned on, and a new hard disk is detected, AutoMount automatically tries to assign a drive letter and mount the disk. However, you may want to turn off Automount feature in some situations. For example, it is suggested to turn off Automount option on systems that have complex storage configurations, such as Storage Area Networks (SANs). On systems where drives are exposed to more than one system, the drives could be exposed to unexpected systems. This exposure could cause these systems to lose data access or could cause data corruption.
Answer
To turn off Automount feature, you can run one of the following commands:
mountvol /N
or
diskpart automount disable
We can verify the status of Automatic mounting of new volumes by looking at the value of the following key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\MountMgr\NoAutoMount
If the value is set to 1: This indicates that Automatic mounting of new volumes is Disabled.
If the value is set to 0: This indicates that Automatic mounting of new volumes is Enabled.
More Information
By default, the Automount feature is turned off by default in Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition and in Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition. For other versions of Windows Server 2003, it is enabled by default.
Mountvol
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc772586(WS.10).aspx
822653 Program Cannot Access a Raw Partition on Your Computer's Hard Disk
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;822653
829305 You receive a "The format did not complete successfully" error message when you format a new hard disk in Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;829305
Applies to
Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008