Q. If my Windows Server 2008 R2 cluster can't make quorum or is unavailable, will the content of the Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) namespace still be available?

A. The answer is most likely no. The CSV namespace is a feature provided by the cluster, so if your cluster is unavailable the contents of the ClusterStorage folder on each node in the cluster won't be available. Depending on how cleanly the cluster was shut down and the cleanup performed, some elements of the ClusterStorage may still be visible, but the folder is unlikely to function correctly.

You need to force the cluster to start to get access to the Cluster Shared Volume content. You can force it to start by forcing quorum, but this should only be done as a last resort, because forcing quorum can cause problems if other nodes in the cluster are still available and have made quorum. Make sure you know the status of all other nodes in the cluster before forcing quorum.

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