How to add 1TB drive to existing PC w/ 2 250gb raid-5 Drives

[prosedan84]

So I am trying to add a 1 TB hard drive to my alienware computer my brother just gave me that currently has 2 250gb hard drives that are in raid-5. I am running windows 7 and I can not get my computer to recognize the 1 TB drive whatsoever. I took the drive out, put it in my other computer, and it saw it just fine, I tried to format it to NTFS with that PC then put it in the alienware, still nothing. Any suggestions what I could try next?

 

[Igor Rass]

If you got the money get the 2TB bu the best price/storage are 1.5TB drives.

 

[prosedan84]

I am fine with just the 1 TB, I am just trying to see if I can get help why my computer will not recognize it.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Well, something doesn't seem right. You can't have a RAID 5 with just 2 drives. The minimum for RAID 5 is 3 drives.

Does the drive show up on the bios screen when booting? Also, when in windows, does it show up in disk management? If so, try partitioning and formatting the drive from there.

 

[prosedan84]

Okay, I could be wrong about RAID 5 then...but they are in some type of raid. Im just not too familiar with raid. Its not recognizing anywhere whatsoever, not the bios, windows disk management or anything. But it recognized fine in my other computer.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Have you tried updating the bios? Also, if you can, it will help if you list your system specs and OS.

 

[WyomingKnott]

The problem is simple if you ignore the existing drives. The new drive should not be added to the RAID array, because it is of a massively different capacity.

But brand-new drives need to be partitioned and formatted before you can see them in Windows Explorer and use them. See my guide: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/265764-32-guide-installed-disk-system

 

[Hawkeye22]

But brand-new drives need to be partitioned and formatted before you can see them in Windows Explorer and use them. See my guide: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/265764-32-guide-installed-disk-system

The OP stated that the drive isn't seen in the bios either. If the bios can't see it, windows certainly won't be able to.

A bios update may fix the problem.

 

[WyomingKnott]

The OP stated that the drive isn't seen in the bios either. If the bios can't see it, windows certainly won't be able to.

Oops, missed that: "its not recognizing anywhere whatsoever, not the bios, windows disk management or anything. "

Some motherboards (like my Dell) actually have the ports enabled / disabled in BIOS. If a port is disabled, a drive on it won't be seen. If a port is enabled, and has no drive on it, the machine won't boot. Seems like a pretty dumb design to me.

But the OP might check that in BIOS.

Edit: I just went to add this to the guide, and found that it was already there in step 4. Sometimes I do get things right.

 

[Hawkeye22]

Oops, missed that: "its not recognizing anywhere whatsoever, not the bios, windows disk management or anything. "

Some motherboards (like my Dell) actually have the ports enabled / disabled in BIOS. If a port is disabled, a drive on it won't be seen. If a port is enabled, and has no drive on it, the machine won't boot. Seems like a pretty dumb design to me.

But the OP might check that in BIOS.

My Dell at work is like this too, and you're right, it's a dumb design. Good call on checking if there are individual ports in the bios.

@OP: I'd check this before trying to update the bios.

 

[prosedan84]

Ok. thank you guys, I will try this out when i get home from work. Appreciate it.