I have a fresh install of Windows Server Essentials R2.  The installation went fine and the Operating System is on a 250 GB SATA Drive.  Up to this point everything went well.  However, I have added two new 3 TB SATA Internal Hard Drives that I cannot get the Server Operating System to recognize at all.  I want to use these two new HDs as my primary storage for the Client Computers. The BIOS does see the two Drives but the Operating System does not see them, meaning that no message came up when I installed them from the OS, they don't show up in "Computer" or the "Storage/Computer Management" plug-in of "Administrative Tools".  What is happening here?  I've tried everything that I can think of, but with no luck.  Please assist with this issue.  Thank you.  

Hi, I would use the lastest firmware and driver for your HDD controller, as the OS dont see them at all.

Thank you Philippe for your response.  I have all of the latest Drivers and Updates for the Computer and the Operating System.  Still no joy!

Is it part of a raid, like a stripped raid ?

No RAID involved.  In fact, nothing special is involved with this installation at all.  Straight Server Operating System on a 250 GB SATA Western Digital Caviar Black Drive, and two 3 TB SATA Seagate Drives for storage.  That's what makes this entire project so frustrating!  This should be a "no brainer"!

No dynamic disk display in Disk Management?

Best,

Howtodo

Thank you Howtodo for your response.  I am not sure what you are looking for here.  Please be more specific.  As I mentioned in my original Post, the Operating System does not show the Drives in "Computer" or the "Computer Management" plug-in of "Administrative Tools".  They do show up in the BIOS so the MOBO does see and identify them correctly, but the OS does not.

try formatting the drives in GPT.

check out links below, for your reference:

Windows Setup: Installing using the MBR or GPT partition style
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn336946.aspx

http://en.community.dell.com/techcenter/extras/w/wiki/2837.hdd-support-for-2-5tb-3tb-drives-and-beyond

Thank you for your response.  I am not familiar with the GPT Partition Style.  However, I followed the Link that you have provided and printed off the instructions.  Hopefully I will have the opportunity to try this later this weekend.  The Server Computer was built in 2009 and does not have a UEFI BIOS.  I have set it both to the AHCI and legacy IDE Modes, but this did not make any difference at all.  It is currently set at IDE.  Several questions come to mind here:  1) If I Partition the drives to GPT as suggested, can I reformat them back to NTFS if needed?  I don't want to scrap two new 3 TB drives.  2)  What is the benefit derived by using a GPT Partition?  Thank you for your assistance.

• Edited by PARADOX-RED Friday, October 24, 2014 2:38 PM spelling

GPT if i'm not wrong will support large partitions.

I have enabled GPT on my server, and I formatted the drives using NTFS.

 

check out link below, it's not Microsoft site but it will give you an idea.

text below is from this link: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/233291-32-what-difference

Here's what the site says:

MBR is the standard partitioning scheme that's been used on hard disks since the PC first came out. It supports 4 primary partitions per hard drive, and a maximum partition size of 2TB.

GPT disks are new, and are readable only by Windows Server 2003 SP1, Windows Vista (all versions), and Windows XP x64 Edition. The GPT disk itself can support a volume up to 2^64 blocks in length. (For 512-byte blocks, this is 9.44 ZB - zettabytes. 1 ZB is 1 billion terabytes). It can also support theoretically unlimited partitions.

Windows restricts these limits further to 256 TB for a single partition (NTFS limit), and 128 partitions.

Only Itanium systems running Windows Server 2003 and Windows Vista systems with an EFI BIOS can boot from a GPT disk. The other operating systems mentioned earlier can use GPT disks as data disks but not boot disks.

For more information on GPT, see Problems with larger than 2TB arrays in the General Storage forum, and see Windows and GPT FAQ for additional information.

Thanks everyone for the assistance.  I built up a new Server system over the weekend.  It is running fine using the old install of Windows Server Essentials R2, but it still does not see my new Hard Drives.  This weekend I intend to do a clean install of the OS and I will Partition and Format the new Hard Drives with NTFS as part of the installation.  Doing it this way, I hope the OS will finally see the Drives.  I'll keep you up-to-date on the results.  I'm still not comfortable with a GPT Partition, even after reading the literature.  I believe that NTFS will work, and that does correspond with the information provided by MS in the Server Help Files.  We'll get through this sooner or later!

• Edited by PARADOX-RED Thursday, November 06, 2014 1:43 AM spelling

Hi,

Just wondered if you managed to get this sorted, I have a Hp micro server with 2012 essentials on it, I placed a 3tb drive formatted in NTFS and cant see it. I don't want to wipe my OS as I have Hmail server running on it.

If you have anything that will stop me pulling my hair out I would be most grateful.

Regards,

Stuart

Hi,

Just wondered if you managed to get this sorted, I have a Hp micro server with 2012 essentials on it, I placed a 3tb drive formatted in NTFS and cant see it. I don't want to wipe my OS as I have Hmail server running on it.

If you have anything that will stop me pulling my hair out I would be most grateful.

Regards,

Stuart

Hi Stuart, check out this thread it might give you some idea:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/2d897851-9aec-4377-b798-86a38a3e72f1/how-to-install-windows-server-2012-with-gpt-partition-on-a-clean-hard-drive?forum=winserver8setup