windows partitioning

[joeallendds]

This may not be the right place, but I have a problem with partitioning a raid 0 and a slave disk on a win2000 spk2 abit kt7 raid system. All the drivers are updated and the system disk and the system is working just fine. The bios, highpoint controller, and win 2k device manager sees the disks ( raid 0 2 IBM 45 gig atat100, and the slave IBM 60 gig ata 100). The raid drives are masters on channel 3 and 4 and the slave is on channel 3. When I go into disk manager it sees the drives correctly, but when I right click on either the raid or the slave drive to partition them, the option to partition them is greyed out. I am logged on as administrator.
the books I have read says I should be able to do this, but obviously something is not right. A couple of techs said to FDISK through dos and to go to microsoft to get teh new FDISK program that partitions very large drives. I cuuld not find it. I looked at the new version of PartitionMagic but it says it only goes to 80 gigs and my array(for video) is 90 gigs.
Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.
Thank you.

Joe

 

[joeallendds]

Sorry but I forgot to mention that I set the disks up as NTFS when I went into the highpoint controller. This is a video editing system and I need the larger files.

Thanks again.

Joe

 

[ChrisHirst]

What is happening is that Windows 2k will not allow you to configure these because the drive configuration is under the control of the Highpoint controller and the OS is just handling file I/O.


Chris.

 

[joeallendds]

Hi Chris. thanks for the post.

If that is the case, then how does one partition these drives for NTFS? Do I use one of those partitioning programs? I can't believe it's this hard to setup extra disks.

I find it totally frustrating that the "Windows 2000 Professional Installation & Configuration Handbook" by Microsoft says on page 345 that new disks can be partitioned.
As far the highpoint controller issue. I just followed the motherboard instructions on installing and configuring a raid through their Bios. There is no way of partitioning the drives through their Bios setup utility.

Thanks again.

 

[butchrecon]

the fact that the 2 drives are in a raid configuration and controlled by a raid controller SHOULD be invisible to the OS. Do you have the latest drivers? I take it the OS is on the non-raid drive? How about the controller, have you done EVERYTHING with it to prepair the drives? If so have you tried formatting the raid drives instead of partitioning them? It sounds as if you have created a partition using the Highpoint BIOS. James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[llefebure]

My experience with array controllers is that you have to use the array config utility to create a "logical drive". This is a single virtual drive that windows sees. Underneath, it is made up of multiple real hard drives.

Once windows can see this logical drive, all partitioning and formatting should be done through windows, not the array config utility.

Check that you don't have a dynamic disk (in contrast to a basic disk).

Note:
Basic Disk = Partitions
Dynamic Disk = Volumes

-Lance

 

[ChrisHirst]

You will have to delete the existing volume setup by the raid controller before you can do any operations on the volume under Win2k. As you say 'new disks can be partitioned' the important word is 'New' as this means a 'factory fresh' drive. The Mylex raid boards used in our servers have a format drives option when you set them up, but if you leave them blank you can then use the OS. As for a new ver of FDISK Win2k does not need it as partitioning is handled natively in the OS providing the disk is 'as new'. It sounds like you have not had that much experience with Win2k yet as partitions are now renamed as 'Volumes' so to partition your drive you Create a Volume.

Chris.

 

[joeallendds]

The system drive is on IDE channel 1 as master. All drivers are the latest for everything. The 45's and 60 gig drives are brand new drives(never used). I just installed them. the only thing on this system is the video Matrox 450 dual, NIC, Turtle beach sound card and a CD and CDRW on their own IDE 2 channel. As I said, the system runs perfect. All I wanted to do was get the video drives set up on the raid controller because it is ata 100 and the other IDE controller is 66.
the drives were setup as NTFS, and I received no error messages. The drives are not Dynamic disks. As a matter of fact disk manager says they are unknown disks in the left hand box.

I emailed abit and highpoint but htey have not returned my question.

Thanks for the help.


Joe

 

[butchrecon]

Does it give you the option to or allow u to format? James Collins
Field Service Engineer
A+, MCP

email: butchrecon@skyenet.net

Please let us (Tek-tips members) know if the solutions we provide are helpful to you. Not only do they help you but they may help others.

 

[joeallendds]

Unfortunately no it does not.

 

[ChrisHirst]

The disks being labeled as unknown is the problem. The OS does not recognise them or the file system on them. Try a RC in the LH box of the graphic display and see if Reactivate Disk is available, this may bring them back on-line. Failing that you will need to delete the raid configuration at the h/w controller and use it as a 4 drive IDE controller, then in Disk Management set the drives up as Dynamic Volumes and use the software raid features of Win2k to create a spanned volume (You cannot use Basic volumes for raid volumes). This way you can use every byte of the drives as well as with this method you don't have to have a parity drive and as file size is your primary concern this may be a better option.
Just to add a point I have the same MB in the machine I am working on at this minute and I had similar problems when setting up the raid controller and I used the software solution.

Chris.

 

[joeallendds]

Thanks. I'll try it tonight. Have a great day.

Joe