Disk Utility seems to have created a copy of a volume

Question

A server I was asked to take a look at has empty user folders after running Disk Utility. I checked via the GUI and the files and folder see fine to the WGM paths. So, I checked permission, seemed ok...yet still user stuff was gone, yet we can see it.
So I used the Terminal, and low and behold in the /Volumes/ directory there are 3 volumes, while the GUI only shows 2. The gui shows SHD and DHD( this is an OS Server [Xserve G5] with 10.3.8), the terminal ls command yeilds DHD, DHD 1, and SHD.
When I checked, the DHD is a semi-empty copy of DHD 1, it contain the 2 folder for all the user and each folder holds the users susequent folders and subfolder but all empty as if they were brand new. Checking into DHD 1, that is the correct data, information, etc.
So, my question is, what do I need to do to get DHD 1 to be mapped to the users like it was, and how do I get rid of DHD and make DHD 1 back to DHD like it was.

Answer 1

This is no problem at all; in fact, the behavior is normal.
As you've noted, the Volumes directory contains an empty folder and two folders that correspond to mounted volumes. The folders in the Volumes directory are just that - folders. They serve as mount points for volumes, simply linking the contents of these volumes' filesystems to the filesystem of the startup volume.
The mount point does not have to correspond to the name of the volume (which is shown by the Finder); further, it can be any folder, not just one in the Volumes directory.
However, as you've noted, the paths of share points (including those that contain users' home directories) are created with respect to the server's startup volume's filesystem. Therefore, it is imperative to keep them intact.
When you ran the filesystem verification or repair, Disk Utility (or diskutil) had to unmount the volume in question. Unmounting the volume would have unlinked the /Volumes/DHD folder from the actual DHD volume. Normally, the operating system have deleted the /Volumes/DHD folder automatically, so that name could be used for a new folder (mount point) when the volume would be remounted. However, if you were to perform the check while certain services (such as File Services) were running, the old mount point /Volumes/DHD would not be deleted. Apparently, this is what happened.
To avoid this problem in the future: Stop all file and print services before running Disk Utility.
To make the DHD volume remount at /Volumes/DHD:
1. Unmount the DHD volume using Disk Utility.
2. In Terminal, delete the /Volumes/DHD folders with this command: rm -rf /Volumes/DHD*
3. Remount the DHD volume using Disk Utility (or simply reboot your server).
--Gerrit