Integrated Raid Controller and Raid Expension...

[Ebzed]

Hello,
I Have a Compaq Proliant 1600 server with integrated raid controller.
We had 3 disks, and i have added 2 more disks, for doing so
i used the compaq disk array manager from the smartstart cd.
(not possible to do so from win2k, claiming its not supported).

everything passed ok, its already 3 hours passed and the system is still under parity rebuild (18gb disks used).

As for the moment, beside the system partition, nothing else is loading (no error, no nothing, after the press f10 message, i got a black screen with blinking cursor).

Should i wait to the finish of the background parity and then my drives will be ready for use ? (after all system partition is loading ok).

The drives led are not blinking (they read/write blinks only when in the smartstart array manager).

Any ideas?

 

[Hkirschner]

It all depends on what you did in the Array configuration utility when adding the drives.
Expanding the array by two drives would not cause an issue, and the background parity checking will have no detrimental effect (typically takes 20 minutes a GB).
Creating a new logical drive with the new space also is verfy safe and would not typically cause this problem.
But, extending the logical drive can have adverse effects in Windows 2000 if the disk representations in Disk Management are configured as Dynamic disks. Compaq did not support the above scenario until after W2K sp3, and it is still not highly recommended (my opinion).
I would start by running the recovery console and attempting to establish if there is still a c: partition, if there is then you have a chance (contact Microsoft), if not its rebuild time.