Changes in ACU are not reflecting in windows 2003 Disk Management

[Irfan_3]

Hi,
We have HP MSA1000 with 3 72GB hard disks configured with RAID 5, its fine. When we go to windows 2003 Disk management its showing a partition size of 135GB, perfect!

Now we want to add another hard disk of 72 GB and extend the Array, we are using HP array configuraton utility and extending the Array, The new extended Array is showing the size of 207 GB in ACU.But, when we go back to windows 2003 Disk Management, its still showing us 135GB.

What is going wrong ? The changes in ACU are not reflecting in windows 2003 Disk Manangement. Do i need to delete/recreate the partitions in windows 2003 Disk Management to see the new extended size ?

We want the expansion of Array in ACU to affect windows 2003 as well, instead of recreating the whole partition in windows 2003.

Any comments would be appreciated.Its urgent!!

Thanks in advacnce

[Steven Clementi]

In Disk Management, do you see your original 135GB partition? then some free space? @72GB's of free space?

In ACU, you added the new drive to the array, but did you expand the original logical drive? If so , then the above should be as stated... you should see, as Disk1-135GB C: and 72GB free.

If you created a new logical drive, you would see...
Disk1 - 135GB C:
Disk2 - 72GB free

If you did indeed expand the 135GB lun, then you need to manually extend the partition in Windows as it will not do it automatically for you.

There is a utility called "diskpart.exe" that you would need to run. It is suggested that you perform the procedure while there is no I/O on the drive.

Look here for a decent Microsoft Article on diskpart.exe...
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;325590


Steven

[Irfan_3]

i right clicked the ARRAY and then clicked expand the array.Now i could see Logical Drive 1 (135GB) and Unsued space (72GB).

I guess i expanded the Array, right? Now if i go to windows 2003 Disk Management i still see Disk 2 with 135 GB RAID 5. I cannot see the Unused space/Partition. ACU Satus Message shows #777 (the current array controller is performing expansion...). Do i have to wait? if so, how long ?

Can you guide me the next step. i am stuck here. I tried the above steps as i stated earlier i.e the logical Drive 1 in Array is expanded to 228 GB but the windows Disk Management will still show Disk 2 with 135GB and no unused space. I dont want to create another Logical Drive in ACU. I want to add the new drive to existing Logical Drive 1 with RAID 5.

help me plsss.

Thanks in advance

[Steven Clementi]

If the expansion is not finished yet, you will need to wait for it to finish.

As for how long, it really depends on how much data you have on the existing drives since the array needs to level out the data across the new drive. It can take a longer time if there is lots of activity on the controller as well. If you can, you should set the priority for expand to "high". It should give you a quicker expand.


Steven