I set up a "home server" running Windows 8.1.  My main storage was a Storage Spaces Pool that contained 8 hard drives running under a parity scheme.  I use this to archive movies, music and television programs from my Windows Media Center system in another room of the house.  When I originally set up the pool, I told Storage Spaces that my pool was 50 TB even though it was not even close to that amount.  Not sure why I did that but the problem it caused was that Windows always tells me how much room I have left of the 50 TB instead of how much room I really have left.

So to fix things, after 12 months of successfully using Storage Spaces, I decided to save up all of my data to external backups and re-create my Storage Spaces pool from scratch using the actual amount of available space as the stated size of my pool.  Had a few problems deleting the original pool; system kept telling me that the pool was still in use when I was very sure it was not.  Finally, I was successful in deleting the pool.

When I went to re-create my pool with three additional new hard drives in addition to the eight original drives from the deleted pool, Storage Spaces refuses to allow me to incorporate the previously used drives into my newly created pool, even though the old pool has been deleted.  An error message stating that the old drives are still in use prevents me from incorporating them into my newly created pool.  These eight old drives can be formatted and used successfully as regular data drives without problem but Windows 8.1 Storage Spaces will not accept the previously used drives into my new pool, even though they are completely empty and have been re-initialized and totally cleared of all partitions and data.

Approximately eight calls and six hours on the telephone with at least a dozen technicians and supervisors at Microsoft Answer Desk finally resulted in them telling me that Storage Spaces is only supported by the Pro support department for business users with at least 10 devices.  I have scoured the Internet and tried many methods to "clear" these old drives unsuccessfully.  Before giving up on the parity savings of Storage Spaces, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas on how to get my installation of Windows 8.1 to "release" these old drives so that they can be incorporated into a new Storage Spaces Pool.  I have tried re-installing Windows 8.1 on my server machine, hoping that any registry record of "used" drives would be removed.  It did not work.  I was hoping someone might know a solution to this problem OR be able to refer me to a professional I could hire to help me with this problem.

I suspect the HD GUID is stored somewhere in registry and the OS thinks they are already "in use"  How did you remove the old storage space?

Hi,

Since reinstall system doesn't work with this problem, it should be HDD itself problem. Please try to format these drive and make disk repair for test.

I do not remember how I removed the old storage space except that I remember having problems doing so.  Another forum suggested that I use PowerShell Reset command on the disks that Storage Spaces will not accept.  Does that sound like a potential solution?

• Edited by Allen Coleman Saturday, August 08, 2015 8:01 PM

I do not remember how I removed the old storage space except that I remember having problems doing so.  Another forum suggested that I use PowerShell Reset command on the disks that Storage Spaces will not accept.  Does that sound like a potential solution?

• Edited by Allen Coleman Saturday, August 08, 2015 8:01 PM

Format did not help.  Not sure I understand "make disk repair for test".

Hi Allen,

Will Disk Management allow you to take these three extra drives offline? If that also says they are in use then this probably isn't a Storage Pool/Spaces problem.

This is a wild one but have your tried turning off your anti-virus. Some of those do strange things.

Also, what happens if you try to create a completely new storage pool with these disks. Do you get the same error?

Don't know about whether the disk reset will work but it's documented here

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848660(v=wps.630).aspx

Looks like your best bet.

I use Powershell ISE to run these commands. Tip, use the up and down keys to get back to a previously entered command. Run the Get-PhysicalDisk command without parameters. It will tell you which disks are eligible to add to a pool. Also tells you the FriendlyName of all your disks.

This combination can be useful. It tells you which Storage Spaces depend on a particular physical disk.

Get-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName PhysicalDisk1 | Get-VirtualDisk

Nothing to do with your problem but, out of curiosity, are you running Home Server under Hyper-v using storage spaces? If so then I have a similar setup. By my count you plan to have 11 drives. What do you use to hold all of those?

Dave

• Edited by Dave Mullard 7 hours 5 minutes ago

Hi Allen,

Will Disk Management allow you to take these three extra drives offline? If that also says they are in use then this probably isn't a Storage Pool/Spaces problem.

This is a wild one but have your tried turning off your anti-virus. Some of those do strange things.

Also, what happens if you try to create a completely new storage pool with these disks. Do you get the same error?

Don't know about whether the disk reset will work but it's documented here

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh848660(v=wps.630).aspx

Looks like your best bet.

I use Powershell ISE to run these commands. Tip, use the up and down keys to get back to a previously entered command. Run the Get-PhysicalDisk command without parameters. It will tell you which disks are eligible to add to a pool. Also tells you the FriendlyName of all your disks.

This combination can be useful. It tells you which Storage Spaces depend on a particular physical disk.

Get-PhysicalDisk -FriendlyName PhysicalDisk1 | Get-VirtualDisk

Nothing to do with your problem but, out of curiosity, are you running Home Server under Hyper-v using storage spaces? If so then I have a similar setup. By my count you plan to have 11 drives. What do you use to hold all of those?

Dave

• Edited by Dave Mullard Tuesday, August 11, 2015 12:19 AM