Hard disk recognised sometimes

[Stoday]

I'm running Vista Ultimate 64 bit on a machine I built last month. I was running three hard disks, two in bootable Raid 1 and the other as a hot spare on which I could write backup files.

One of the raid disks failed. The intel raid software worked very well, if somewhat slowly, taking 4 hours to reform my raid array with the hot spare.

I have now replaced the dud drive. However I've got recognition problems. Device Manager can see the disk and reports it's working OK. Computer cannot find it. I've plugged in my external e-sata disk, and Windows recognises that straight away.

BIOS does recognise the drive, but thinks it's a raid drive. The raid controller recognises it.

In the old pre vista days I would be looking to format the new disk, but I don't seem to have such an option in Vista.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[2scoops0406]

It used to be the case that all the raid drives had to be identical (Win NT days) but I don't know if this is still the case.

 

[Stoday]

Thanks for your comment. They are the same model anyway, Samsung HD502, 500GB.

 

[Igorian]

Sounds like the BIOS had added the 3rd drive into the mirrored array or has allocated it as a RAID volume which is not yet configured, which is why Windows won't see it as a separate drive. There must be a setting in the RAID config. to disable the drive being seen as a RAID volume.

Does the drive appear under Disk Management in Windows?

 

[Stoday]

Thanks for your response 2scoops and igorian. Appreciated.

I did finally manage to sort it out. It was a matter of formatting the disk but Vista dosn't just hide stuff, it buries it. Just in case anyone else has the same problem, here's my answer:

Get into control panel. I used to use the classic view; that was my mistake. You need to find "Computer Management" but you can't find it in the classic (i.e. pre XP & Vista) view. So,
Control Panel >
System and Maintenance >
Administrative Tools >
Computer Management >
Storage >
Disk Management >
Now you can right click on the disks to set partitions and format.

Once formatted, I was away. Phew!

 

[2scoops0406]

Thanks for your response 2scoops and igorian. Appreciated.

I did finally manage to sort it out. It was a matter of formatting the disk but Vista dosn't just hide stuff, it buries it. Just in case anyone else has the same problem, here's my answer:

Get into control panel. I used to use the classic view; that was my mistake. You need to find "Computer Management" but you can't find it in the classic (i.e. pre XP & Vista) view. So,
Control Panel >
System and Maintenance >
Administrative Tools >
Computer Management >
Storage >
Disk Management >
Now you can right click on the disks to set partitions and format.

Once formatted, I was away. Phew!

Or start - > run compmgmt.msc

 

[Igorian]

Or START and open DISKMGMT.MSC for direct access

 

[Spark123]

or Start, right click computer, manage, continue, select disk management from the list.

 

[Stoday]

I guess I went around the moon to get to my own back door.