ML115 - Convert single disk to RAID 1

[AycheKay]

We installed SBS 2003 to a single SATA disk. Now we need to add SATA disk 2 and convert it all to RAID 1. How can we do this?


Here's more detailed information:

We've got an ML115 server with the built-in nVidia RAID controller. When installing the OS, we enabled RAID in the BIOS and setup the RAID array (RAID 1) using the RAID setup utility in the BIOS, then we installed the OS. When we installed the OS we DID NOT use F6 to install the RAID drivers.

At some point after installing the OS it became apparent that we were missing drivers in the device manager. They turned out to be the RAID drivers so we installed the nVidia RAID drivers, within Windows, after installing the OS, but we haven't configured any RAID array yet.

The apparent result of all this is an OS that is only installed on one disk drive.

Is it possible to add a second hard disk now and convert this to RAID 1? Please not that we don't want to use software RAID.

[TTr]

Most likely this controller does not have the RAID type migration feature. You can check the server user's guide in http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00260539/c00260539.pdf page 50. Then on top of page 54 you are refered to the embedded RAID controller's user guide in http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c00771065/c00771065.pdf

On page 4 of this doc, "Methods for configuring an array" in the first bullet, it says that you can not change the RAID level of an existing array. In the second bullet, the GUI is mentioned so you can check if the GUI has this feature but it is not likely. Look for a raid type migration feature in the menus of the GUI.
On pages 5-8 of this document, the raid migration feature is not mentioned anywhere.

[AycheKay]

I used another ML115 G5 with the nVidia RAID controller to test this. All of my attempts to change the single disk setup to a RAID 1 have failed so I'm assuming it's not possible.

The original server is an HP ML115 G5 with 160GB SATA hard drives from HP, connected to the nVidia SATA RAID controller on the motherboard (nVidia RAID, currently not configured as RAID).

We are having bad block errors when trying to make an image type backup of the C Drive using Backup Exec System Recovery 8.5.

Strange thing is, the drive shows up in the device manager and in Western Digital's Data LifeGuard Diagnostics as a GB0160CAABV but the physical drive itself has the following model numbers on it:

WD 1601ABYS-70C0A0
WD RE2
P/N 481177-001
GPN: 397377-020
WWN: 50014EE1568678DD


The WDLGD Quick Test reported this:
Status code = 07 (Failed read test element), Failure Checkpoint = 02 (Unknown Test)
SMART self-test did not complete on drive 2!

Will be sending the drive into HP Warranty.