Adding new disks to an array

[DPN]

I have a Windows 2003 standard, running lotus Domino, all data is the on volume which is currently 540gb (this is being expanded) I'm adding 2 more disks to this array which are 2 x 146.8 ULTRA320 SCSI drives. It is Raid 5

controller is Smart Array 6400 EM Controller

ACU is ver: 8.20.19.0

(problem 1)
I have physically added the two drives, a colleague has upgraded the firmware and now the hp ACU is not working. However I've got into the System Management Homepage and can see the additional disks (capacity up to 820 GB)
My drives show up in the physical drive list also.

(problem 2)
To continue with the upgrade, I was going to copy off all the data on this volume, then create a new partition with all the disks (including the new ones) reformat the partition then copy the data back. This sounds simple, but does not sound right.

Does anyone have any pointers, I'm doing this on the weekend so its quite urgent,
Any help will be soooo much appreciated

Please tell if you need more info.

Thank you

Damien.

[TTr]

You need to put your effort into getting the ACU working. You mentioned that your collegue upgraded the firmware, I assume that was on the controller. Did you try restarting the ACU? Any errors when trying to run ACU?

For problem 2, once you get the acu working, you should be able to add the drives to the existing array, live, with no downtime. This is the "array expansion" feature. Look at http://forums13.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1313971 for more details.

In all cases it is always a good idea to run a full backup before doing any array work.