How to: Auto-mount for Welland miniSAN HDD enclosures under Windows (ME-747GK-S)

23/02/2009, Matt Currie

The Welland GIGA miniSAN hard drive enclosures are great except for one flaw: The default software install is a pain in the ass because you have to click on a tray icon to make some weird interface popup, click through a Windows UAC prompt, then click "Discover", wait around a bit, then click "Mount" and then wait some more just to get your hard drives to appear. Next you have to deal with Autoplay popping up for every partition you have set up on the external disk.

A much better solution would be for the drives to auto mount as soon as your machine boots in a totally hidden manner.

Luckly they provide the tools for doing just this. The only bad thing is that the documentation is missing. I managed to find these instructions here (in German) for the ME-747K-SI device which uses the same software.

Here's my translation which will hopefully be a bit easier to find for other users.

First step is to open up a command prompt as administrator (right click on the icon and choose "Run as administrator" if you are using Windows Vista or Windows 7). You should see something like this:
```
Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7000]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation.  All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>cd "\Program Files\miniSAN"
```
Next change to the directory that contains the files by typing the following and pressing Enter: cd "\Program Files\miniSAN"
It should look like this:
```
C:\Windows\system32>cd "\Program Files\miniSAN"

C:\Program Files\miniSAN>
```

Next up we need to find out the device ID/MAC address of your miniSAN enclosure to pass to the mounting program. To find out the address, just enter the following and press Enter again: miniSAN_probe.exe

C:\Program Files\miniSAN>miniSAN_probe.exe
miniSAN Controller Application (API v20080131, build 20080131, '\\.\miniSAN')

Exit

miniSAN Controller Application (API v20080131, build 20080131, '\\.\miniSAN')

Exit
\DEVICE\{AB7FD81E-B3B3-44E4-8066-C16A487810CB},0.0,00:16:67:F0:3D:C5,

miniSAN Controller Application (API v20080131, build 20080131, '\\.\miniSAN')

Exit

miniSAN Controller Application (API v20080131, build 20080131, '\\.\miniSAN')

Exit

miniSAN Controller Application (API v20080131, build 20080131, '\\.\miniSAN')

Exit

C:\Program Files\miniSAN>

You should see something similar to the above. From the of the miniSAN_probe command you need to copy the line that starts with "\DEVICE\...." to your clipboard.

You can do this by clicking the small black icon in the top right of the command prompt window then choosing "Edit" and then "Mark". Next draw a box over the whole line starting with "\DEVICE\...." and then press Enter on your keyboard to copy to the clipboard.
Now we will mount the disks on your computer. Just type the following: miniSANCtl.exe insert #aoe: and then we need to paste from the clipboard.
You can do that by clicking the small black icon in the top right of the command prompt window then choosing "Edit" and then "Paste".

Important: If there is a trailing comma at the end of the text like in my example you should press backspace to delete that. Next you need to use the left arrow key on your keyboard to go back through the line and then delete the comma character directly after the curly closing bracket and insert a space character. It should look something like this on your screen:
```
C:\Program Files\miniSAN>miniSANCtl.exe insert #aoe:\DEVICE\{AB7FD81E-B3B3-44E4-8066-C16A487810CB} 0.0,00:16:67:F0:3D:C5
```
If all looks good then press Enter and you should see the following:
```
miniSAN Controller Application (API v20080131, build 20080131, '\\.\miniSAN')
miniSAN driver: API v20080131, build 20080131
Connecting to '#aoe:\DEVICE\{AB7FD81E-B3B3-44E4-8066-C16A487810CB}'...
Session opened: TargetId= [2], LUNs: 1, out params length= 0
Success~

Exit

C:\Program Files\miniSAN>
```
Great, your drives should now be mounted. Now we need to automate this so it will mount automatically every time your start your computer. First we make a batch file with the mount command in it:
- Copy the entire last line we entered to the clipboard
- Open up Notepad
- Paste it into the file
- At the start of the line, change miniSANCtl.exe to be "C:\Program Files\miniSAN\miniSANCtl.exe"
- Then save it as a file called mount.bat.
The contents of your finished batch file should look something like this:
```
"C:\Program Files\miniSAN\miniSANCtl.exe" insert #aoe:\DEVICE\{AB7FD81E-B3B3-44E4-8066-C16A487810CB} 0.0,00:16:67:F0:3D:C5
```
Now we need to make your computer run this batch file every time it starts up.

Go back to your command prompt and type gpedit.msc The Local Group Policy Editor application should open up. Drill down using the tree on the left:
- Computer Configuration
  - Windows Settings
    - Scripts (Startup/Shutdown)
Now double click "Startup;" and then click "Add...". Locate your mount.bat file using the "Browse..." button, then click "OK", then click "OK", then click "OK" again.
You're done. You can now remove the "miniSAN" program from your Startup folder under the Programs menu and then restart your computer. All the drives located on your external disk should automatically mount.

Hope this helps!