Partition Issues + Joining 2 Sata Drives Together

Crumpy1

Crumpy1

Crumpy1

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Hi,

I have just brought a 2.5TB Sata HDD, It has a 2TB partition and a 280GB Partion that i can do nothing with, also there is a small 100MB Partion that i can only see in the Computer Management Area but i assume this is a reserve for the HDD to work with. Can anybody please tell me how to make this annoying 280GB Partion part of the 2TB Section? I have tried deleting it in the windows set-up no options were available and i have tried to format and amend it in windows but again all sections were greyed out.

Also i have got 2 x 500GB sata drives which are identical in models, makes etc. I would like to if possible make these HDD work together to form i 1TB drive. My Motherboard does support RAID so if it can be done via RAID i should be able to do it.

http://s1217.photobucket.com/albums/dd386/crumpy1/?action=view&current=issue.png

I have uploaded an image link of my issue for people to see exactly how my HDD are partioned and setup, if anybody can explain to me how to upload directly to the forum i will do so to make the image clearer but at this time i do not have authorisation to upload attachments.

Thanks
 
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The 2.5TB disk appears to be your boot drive.

Unless you're running a system with a UEFI BIOS then the maximum size for a boot partition is 2TB so I assume that's how the drive has ended up how it is.

You can use the remaining 280GB to create a separate partition.

You can use RAID 0 to combine the 2x500GB disks into a single 1TB drive.

Doing this will wipe all the data from them.

You would also lose all the data if one of the disks failed.

If you're going to do this then I suggest you delete each partition on the 2 disks by right clicking on them in Disk Management and selecting Delete Volume.

This will set both drives back to an unformatted state.

You then need to set the controller to RAID mode in the BIOS, go into the RAID setup screen you'll see when the system boots and create a RAID 0 array.

Back in Windows you go back into Disk Management and format the new drive.
 
Surveyor said:
The 2.5TB disk appears to be your boot drive.

Unless you're running a system with a UEFI BIOS then the maximum size for a boot partition is 2TB so I assume that's how the drive has ended up how it is.

You can use the remaining 280GB to create a separate partition.

You can use RAID 0 to combine the 2x500GB disks into a single 1TB drive.

Doing this will wipe all the data from them.

You would also lose all the data if one of the disks failed.

If you're going to do this then I suggest you delete each partition on the 2 disks by right clicking on them in Disk Management and selecting Delete Volume.

This will set both drives back to an unformatted state.

You then need to set the controller to RAID mode in the BIOS, go into the RAID setup screen you'll see when the system boots and create a RAID 0 array.

Back in Windows you go back into Disk Management and format the new drive.
Click to expand...

Thank you for your help, is it possible to upgrade a bios to UEFI? the motherboard i have is an ASUS P6X58D Premium with factory installed bios. I cannot set-up the spare 280GB Partion to do anything, as shown in the image all settings for this partion are greyed out so i do not know how to configure this into a NTFS partion.

Also i will attempt to set the 2 other drives as RAID 0, do i need to put these in specific sockets on my mobo or do i just select each drive during set-up?
 
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Crumpy1 said:
Thank you for your help, is it possible to upgrade a bios to UEFI? the motherboard i have is an ASUS P6X58D Premium with factory installed bios. I cannot set-up the spare 280GB Partion to do anything, as shown in the image all settings for this partion are greyed out so i do not know how to configure this into a NTFS partion.

Also i will attempt to set the 2 other drives as RAID 0, do i need to put these in specific sockets on my mobo or do i just select each drive during set-up?
Click to expand...

Sorry, you can't update the BIOS to UEFI.

If Windows won't let you create a partition with the remaining 280GB you're a bit stuffed. Maybe the 2TB limit extends beyond just the boot partition. Are you right clicking on the unallocated space in Disk Management?

Perhaps connecting to an Intel SATA port (blue) will help if you haven't already.

You need to put the 500Gb drives into 2 of the blue SATA ports to use the Intel RAID controller.

I think it's Ctrl-I to enter the RAID setup screen. This should pop up between the BIOS screens and Windows starting.

FYI I'd plug the 2.5TB drive into a blue Intel port as well. Just don't add it to the RAID array when you create it.
 
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The 2.5TB hdd is a 6gb/s drive so is inserted into 1of the 2 slots that the motherboard has for this type of drive. My other 2 hdd though are plugged into the blue ones.

If you look at my screen dump of the computer management screen the box to the right is what I have to chose from when I right click the 280gb partition. Assuming you are correct and I cannot Now use this partition, how can I get round this to get all of my available space?? If I use one of my older drives for windows and install all of my applications on my new 6gb/s drive a) will I be able to then use all of my drive and b) will It run applications at the 6gb/s that the hdd does or will it only run as fast as my other drive with windows on which I believe are sata 1???

Thanks for the help so far, ideally I want to run my system as fast as possible as my old hdd were making load times slow due the speed of the drives so I was going to use them for file storage only.

Thanks again
 
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The Intel SATA ports on your motherboard are SATA 2.

Your new HDD may have a SATA 3 interface but that's really an irrelevance as far as HDD's are concerned.

SATA 2 works up to around 270-280MB/s. A mechanical HDD will be lucky to reach half that speed so it won't be any faster if it's plugged into SATA 2 or SATA 3.

You should use an the Intel SATA 2 ports for all your HDD's as they're more reliable than the Marvell SATA 3 ports.

You should be able use the whole of your new HDD if you just use it as a data drive and have Windows installed elsewhere.

You can create a RAID 0 of your two 500GB drives, as I indicated previously, and install Windows on the resulting 1TB partition. RAID 0 should give a nice speed boost over a single drive.

If you go down this route bear in mind that if one drive in a RAID 0 array fails then all the data is lost so you need to have a backup solution if there's anything installed you can't replace or afford to lose.

This is how I'd do it if you're going to use the RAID 0 array as the boot partition:

1) Disconnect the 2.5GB drive otherwise some Windows Installation files will end up on it

2) Create a RAID 0 array of the two 500GB drives in the BIOS

3) Install Windows to the resulting 1TB RAID 0 partition

4) Don't forget to install the Intel RST drivers

5) Re-connect the 2.5GB drive and format it in Disk Management

You can now use the 2.5GB drive for file storage and you can install programs on to it if you want to.

Just to reiterate connect all your drives to the Blue Intel SATA ports. There's no speed benefit from using the Marvell SATA 3 ports and they're less reliable than the Intel ports. You can then disable the Marvell Controller in the BIOS and it's one less thing that need initialising at startup.
 
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Thanks for the information, i will now attempt to create my raid 0 drive using your instructions above. What are RST Drivers?

Can you please tell me though what the advantages are of having a 6g/s sata drive is if they are only as fast as sata 2 drives?? and why the 6g/s onboard sockets are on the mobo if they make no difference to performance??
 
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There is no advantage in having a SATAIII mechanical drive, just like there's no advantage in having a SATAII one. Neither could saturate a SATA1 link.

The reason they exist is partly marketing and partly simple parts supply. Manufacturing both SATAII and SATAIII interface components costs more than just making SATAIII ones, since they're backwards compatible there's no point in continuing to fabricate SATAII parts.

There are SATAIII SSDs out there remember - they do take advantage of the extra bandwidth available.
 
rpstewart said:
There is no advantage in having a SATAIII mechanical drive, just like there's no advantage in having a SATAII one. Neither could saturate a SATA1 link.

The reason they exist is partly marketing and partly simple parts supply. Manufacturing both SATAII and SATAIII interface components costs more than just making SATAIII ones, since they're backwards compatible there's no point in continuing to fabricate SATAII parts.

There are SATAIII SSDs out there remember - they do take advantage of the extra bandwidth available.
Click to expand...

Thanks for explaining that i never thought about the SSD Drives. Can you tell me what RST Drivers are though please and what they are for?
 
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I have found the drivers (i think), on Intel's website. I will re-post when i finish setup incase i encounter issues.
 
Thanks Surveyor for you RAID 0 instructions these have worked perfectly and my 2 drives now work together using RAID. However i am still unable to use all of my 2.5TB Drive. I have formatted it completely, it is now unallocated and the 280.77GB partion is still greyed out. I have tried formating the drive in NTFS i have also tried shrinking the drive but no luck same as before. Any Ideas?? Extending the drive is greyed out so is not an option. I did encounter an error at one point but never noted its content, it said something like only 2TB can be an MBR partition. As far as im aware my boot drive is the raid drive and is where windows is installed. How do i change it from a MBR drive?
 
I have sorted it now it was set as an MBR disk not a GPT disk so now i have all my available space. Thanks to all for the advice expecially Surveyor your help has been invaluable and my PC setup is as i want it.

Thanks Again
 
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