Method and system for recovery from a coupling facility failure without preallocating space

A method and system for transparently recovering from a coupling facility failure are disclosed. In one method embodiment, the present invention determines, following the failure of a coupling facility, which data was previously assigned to that coupling facility. The present embodiment then prevents access to that failed coupling facility. Next, the present method embodiment selects a new storage location for the data which was previously assigned to the failed coupling facility. The present embodiment then assigns the data previously assigned to the failed coupling facility to a new storage location. In the present invention, the aforementioned steps are performed without requiring preallocation of white space in an alternate coupling facility.