frsupport
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Adding a 2TB drive to a dell poweredge 2900
Hi,
I have a server in the office that is running out of space, i've bought a 2tb drive from dell for this machine, so i powered down the server and fitted the drive, but when it re-booted, the drive did not appear in disk management? no sign of it, can anyone offer any advice? does it need to be registered in BIOS?
I have a server in the office that is running out of space, i've bought a 2tb drive from dell for this machine, so i powered down the server and fitted the drive, but when it re-booted, the drive did not appear in disk management? no sign of it, can anyone offer any advice? does it need to be registered in BIOS?
PowerEdgeTech
Did you connect it directly to the motherboard? or did you connect it to the RAID controller? If the RAID controller, you will need to set up the drive as a single drive RAID 5 before it will be seen in Disk Management.
Correction ... single disk RAID 0 (how embarrassing :))
ASKER
well, there are 8 bays on the front panel of this tower chassis poweredge 2900, so I slotted it into one of the empty bays , my raid skills aren't the best, where can I re-configure the raid on this drive? how do i set it to raid 0?
SOLUTION
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If you want to add this drive to an existing array, you will find walk through's on how to do this on the same site I gave you above
ASKER
no , i want to separate, just a standalone drive , is this difficult to do?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Alternatively, you could do this in the controller's BIOS (probably CTRL-R during POST). On the main page, select F2 for options, and Create Virtual Disk. You will see a single drive listed there - select it, then tab through the fields, SPACE BAR to select Advanced Options and Initialize.
ASKER
I'm a little worried that I will disturb / delete or damage the existing raid config , can you guys tell
me what to stay away from, can't afford to
mess up
me what to stay away from, can't afford to
mess up
As long as you don't do anything that says Delete or Force Offline, the controller manages each disk individually and one array doesn't have anything to do with another, so the risk is minimal. Going through the steps, you will know you are on the right track if it shows you only one disk that you can use to configure. If you only see your new disk in the list of available drives, then what you do with it cannot affect the other array(s).
Frsupport:
If you are worried about doing this, Call Dell, you have lifetime hardware support, they will walk you through this.
Can't beat FREE
If you are worried about doing this, Call Dell, you have lifetime hardware support, they will walk you through this.
Can't beat FREE
Hey. Is this drive seen by BIOS? It must be seen first by BIOS of the machine before you detect it in Windows Disk Management or Dell Management services. Check in BIOS if it sees the drive at all.
Problem could be in lousy cable connection or lack of power. Check if the drive spins at all.
As soon as you make sure that drive spins and it is detected by BIOS then start worrying about RAID.
Problem could be in lousy cable connection or lack of power. Check if the drive spins at all.
As soon as you make sure that drive spins and it is detected by BIOS then start worrying about RAID.
And by "BIOS", you mean the controller's BIOS setup (CTRL-R), right? The system BIOS (F2) will not see this drive if it is attached to the PERC (or SAS) RAID controller. And Windows will only see what has been configured by the RAID controller.
ASKER
Thanks guys , just finished this today, thanks for the walkthrough , detailed and 100% accurate. Excellent!