Added second P400 Controller/Drives showing as Disk 0 - Not sure

[blume]

We have an HP ProLiant 580 G5 running Windows 2008 x64 with Hyper-V.  The server is a shot for 7 Virtual Servers running combination of 2008 and 2003.  Currently the server has a P400 controller with Raid 1 as C drive (OS) and Raid 5 as D drive.

This past week I installed a second P400 controller with 4 300 GB Drives as Raid 5 which will be used a second drive for hosting more virtual servers.

Before adding the second P400 controller I had the following disks under Server Manager>Storage> Disk Management:

Disk 0 – C Drive - with Status as System Boot, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition

Disk 1 – D Drive - with Status as Page File, Primary Partition

After I added the second P400 controller I noticed that when I opened My Computer it was not showing and I realized that I must initialize. I opened Server Manager>Storage> Disk Management and I got a popup screen with the following info:

You must initialize a disk before logical disk management can access it.

Select Disk:

Disk 0 (check box here)

Use the following partition style for the selected disks:

MBR (Master Boot Record) or

GPT (GUID Partition Table)

I did not initialize the new disk yet since I am not sure if I setup the controller correct or not. It seemed also that the second controller and drives attached to it are now listed as Disk 0 since I see the following:

Disk 0 – unknown – 838 GB – Not Initialized – Unallocated

Disk 1- Basic – 136 GB NTFS – C: - Healthy (System Boot, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

Disk 2 – Basic – 546 GB NTFS – Healthy (Page File, Primary Partition)

My question is…should I go ahead and initialize the Disk 0 for the drives for second P400 controller? I am just don’t want to create any problem on the server and cause any data loss or Server no longer recognizing the C Drive since now it is listed as Disk 1.

 Thanks...B

[Ali]

Hi there,

first and foremost, you need to check the array configuration utility. Check the logical drive status and logical drive numbering and let us know which one is your first logical drive and first boot controller.

possibly boot controller order has been changed and other controller that you have added became the first boot controller ... and if you have created the logical drive on it then it will become first boot drive.

I guess that is the reason you are getting disk 0 as  Unallocated space... in normal scenario, it should come as disk 2 as unallocated.

So change the boot controller order from RBSU or ORCA and check

don't initialize unless this order is correct else it will not boot to OS next time

thanks

Aftab

[blume]

First, I want to indicate that I am not having problems with booting the server. My concern is why drives for second P400 controller are showing as Disk 0.

When I added the second P400 controller I hit F8 on boot and created logical drive for the hard drives connected to it.  Should I have NOT done that?

Today I rebooted my server and went to RBSU, next I selected Boot Controller Order and I see the following:

Ctrl 1: PCI Embedded   HP Smart Array P400 Controller

Ctrl 2: PCI Embedded   HP Storage  PCI IDE Controller

Ctrl 3: PCI Slot 9           HP Smart Array P400 Controller

From the above setting I take it that I have the boot order set correctly for my original P400 that came with HP server which has C and D partition on it.

 Thanks for your assistance....B