Expanding Array Problem

[Ayman Altounji]

I have a Proliant ML370 systems w/ a 5300 Array Controller card. The system has (4) 18.2GB hot swappable SCSI hard drives in it setup as a logical drive array together. I wanted to add an additional 18.3GB SCSI hard drive and expanding the array. I went through the SMARTSTART CD instructions, it found the drive and started expanding it. The process was taking a LONG time and I couldn't leave the server down and not booted into NT for the users to access the data. So, I called Compaq and the tech support assured me that it was ok to reboot into the OS and the system will continue the process to expand to the new drive. This was 4 days ago I did this and the expanded drive space is still not showing. Did something go wrong? The new drive has it's green light on like it's functioning and the other green light flashing like it's being accessed. I know the tech support guy told me it can take days, but it had the one day when no one was accessing it. It's just hard to believe it takes this long. Is there something I can check? Did I miss a step? How long would've it have taken if I kept the server down and let it complete? PLEASE HELP!! I'm running low on space and I need to have this drive accessible. THANK YOU :)!!

[Ayman Altounji]

Is this drive still not showing up?

[Ayman Altounji]

This drive has still not shown up. I loaded the ACU program and when I go into it says a message that the controller is still configuring parity information.

When I look at the logical drive information it's status is - Background Parity Initializing
It shouldn't still be initializing, should it?

On the server the capacity of the logical drive show in NT that it's 50GB, which is correct w/o the expansion drive which is an additional 18GB. When I went into Compaq ACU in the Logical drive information is shows the size to my 69GB. Does this mean that's how much it has recognized, and that it will fully see it once it's all done?

I REALLY need this drive up and running - I'm short on disk space. Thanks!!!

[Ayman Altounji]

I have the same server with same specs. I set it up with 4 x 18GB HDs. Later I expanded it with 2 additional 18GB HDs through the Compaq Array configuration in Windows and it only took about 3hours to complete the expansion. So somethings went wrong for you there. You didn't have to use the Smart start disk for that. Hope it is OK for you now.