10k, 146Gb SAS drives

TriedandTested · 31 Oct 2006 at 20:31

Hi,

Having a bit of a problem with a new PowerEdge server with a PERC controller. It has four SAS drives installed, two are raided with the OS on and the other two are for storage etc.

Problem is that drive 0 and drive 1 (raided) are only showing up in win2k3 64bit R2 as a very small drive; about 12gb. The other two aren't showing up at all.

Any ideas?

TriedandTested · 1 Nov 2006 at 10:37

Yeah, looked there; two of the four drives are showing...drive 0 has been partitioned to 12gb and has 134 or so GB unallocated. The second 146gb is all unallocated.

Drives 2 and 3 don't even appear. The lights on the SAS drives are green but no activity.

When setting up the server using the Dell management thing i stipulated that i wanted the drive 0 and 1 in RAID 1 so the OS has a nice backup if things go wrong.

I wanted the other two drives (not showing) for storage.

Help.

TriedandTested · 1 Nov 2006 at 12:41

all four drives are showing up fine in the Dell OpenManager Admin software...have tested (blinked on then off) drives 2 and 3 and they are ok. Just not being recognised in Win2k3 as per my previous post.

Annoying. Will have a play further but any suggestions would be great.

TriedandTested · 1 Nov 2006 at 13:47

Yes. looks like Disk 0 and 1 are virtual disk 1 and disk 2 and 3 are virtual disk 2. Not how i wanted it to be set up.

I want 0 and 1 in RAID 1 and disk 2 and 3 as separate drives (not in RAID).

I may start from scratch using the Dell software to set up then install win2k3 from afresh. Good idea?

TriedandTested · 1 Nov 2006 at 19:14

I've tried...but the Dell software isn't the easiest thing in the world to use/understand. I've not had experience setting up RAID like this before.

I think i have drive 0 and 1 working fine now, showing up as the full 140-odd gig. Still can't get drives 2 and 3 to show anywhere within Windows.

Are there any other tools that i could try?

TriedandTested · 2 Nov 2006 at 11:11

Bump.

The two drives not seen have a status of 'ready' in the system management tools (DELL), the ones working are set to 'online'. I can't see anyway of changing this.

They all seem to be on the same controller too.

TriedandTested · 2 Nov 2006 at 11:20

Sweet! Sorted. Had to use the Dell tools to create more virtual disks then partition them/give them a drive name...they're now both formatting.

Thanks for your help mate.