Adding a new drive to Windows Home Server on a Friday night

Equipment required:

1TB SATA Hard Drive

Phillips Screwdriver

SATA Cable,m

Patience

For the short version you can skip to the bold text.

This whole exciting activity started with the fact that the Seagate 500GB primary drive on my WHS has had problems during reboots.

When I entered the serial number on the Seagate website it responded with “Drive not affected”. Well there you go, it must be me. I think it is time for a new drive. Dell had a special on a 1TB Seagate SATA so I bought it to replace the 500GB. The plan was to dump the 500GB for the 1TB and reinstall WHS. After everything was reinstalled I would then erase the 500GB and put it back in the case to be added to the WHS. Subsequent to this plan I realized that I would have to recreate the users, preferences, backup information and reinstall the add-ins. With this plan now being a lot of work I figured I would try SeaTools for DOS, fix the primary and add the 1TB (excuse me, 931.5GB) hard drive to the WHS.

I had to order a 90° SATA cable ahead of time. When I replaced the original 80GB drive with the 500GB last year I thought I would just throw the 80GB back in the case. The SATA cable that came with the Seagate drive had a straight connector and when installed I could not close the case. I left the drive out and ordered the 90° cable. I never got around to adding the drive back in. I will take the drive to my parents and throw it in their HP MSS. They still have an open bay and I can use it to back up their backup database.

Let’s set this pig on fire.

I love Dell manuals. They are comprehensive, easy to find online and simple to read. That being said, why do they show the SC440 on it nose? In addition, they did not label the SATA board connections by number. I have a feeling these missing labels will come back to bite me.

The drive installation went too easy. No stripped screws and everything fit. Something has to go wrong. You would think for as many times as I have done this that I would not be so superstitious about the install.

Wife just called. She is coming home soon. If I am not done when she gets back she will ask why I added another drive. Crap.

Close the case, plug in everything and press the power switch. It is going to be a few minutes. I have time for a run to the fridge to get a soda.

Where is the drive? Crap. It is time to use the Advanced Admin Console and the Disk Management utility. I still do not see the drive. What did I forget? Crap. According to the Dell instructions, the ones I only partially read, I forgot to press F2 during boot to access setup and enable the drive. I am so used to plug and play I did not even think about it. SATA-0 was the original drive. SATA-1 must be the new one I just installed. Reboot. Drive not found. Crap. Must be SATA-2. F2. Change setup. Reboot. I see the WHS boot screen. Good to see you again my friend.

Adding a drive was easier on my parents HP MSS. Point for HP. If you have a HP MSS instructions for adding a drive can be found at:

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01586271&cc=us&lc=en&dlc=en

The little green house is there but is my drive?

Oh yeah, I rock. It is time to make that little piece of pie even smaller. Open the WHS Console and in the Server Storage Tab click on Add.

Mental note: ALT-Print Screen does not work inside WHS.

I will now follow the prompts.

I hate the fact that the capacity is never what the drive is sold as. I am getting screwed out of 7% each time I buy a drive. I understand the math and reasons why, but come on people, make a drive that nets the 1TB.

From 73% to 86%? I expected more of a delta. It is time to check the math. Ok, 243GB used divided by the original 931GB equals ~26% used leaving 73% of the pie chart before I started. Ok, 243GB divided by the new 1820GB equals ~13% leaving 87% free. Ok, I just scrolled up to the first screen shot and the “available” pie is smaller. I should have just looked at the pie size. All this talk of pie makes me hungry. I wonder if my wife is bringing home dinner.

While we had tacos we watched Eagle Eye. Talk about computer integration. Well let’s not talk about that movie. The computer could manipulate and connect to every computer on the planet but could not change the time he left by 3 minutes? And his twin has the same biometrics? Please. I get my finger slightly sideways on my Microsoft fingerprint reader and it denies me. I digress. Back to the job.

Ok, for those of you who actually read this far, I am going to test the drives with Seagate Tools for DOS. I tried installing the SeaTools for Windows executable file last week and I kept getting an Active X error. I contacted Seagate support and they suggested the DOS version. On their website they should add WHS to their list of OS. I downloaded the ISO file and used Roxio to burn the image. Make sure you choose the “Burn Disc Image to Disc” option and not just the copy data and finalize route. I made another drink coaster the first time.

Shut down WHS and reboot to the CD ISO image. I am running SeaTools for DOS right now doing the short test and it said I need to run the long test. First long scan done. A whole bunch of errors. Did it stall out while running the test? It was not very long.

Let me run the long test again. How long can it take?

1% per minute. I am now glad that it is 7% smaller than advertised.

21 minutes and 21%. Wife is going to bed soon. 80 minutes to finish plus reboot and WHS outs me at 10:40 pm. I am so screwed.

I am bored so I ordered the IT Crowd box set from Amazon UK. I also ordered some knives via Techbargains. Wife is going to be pissed. An extra hard drive and an extra knife set. I just Googled Google. It did not break. I should have my IP address revoked.

27% and 27 minutes. Crap.

47% and 47 minutes. I am waiting for 100 minutes to do my thing. I feel like Desmond. You can count on me my brutha.

It is getting late and my wife is pissed. So much for that. Abort the test and reboot. I see the Windows Home Server startup screen. Cool cause I hate missing a day of backups. I will run the tool again tomorrow when she is out playing Mahjong.

It is the morning and I did a reboot to the CD ISO image. I just finished running the test and it seems like all of the errors from the first test have been corrected.