Dell PowerVault 715N Drive Problem

[darkrider01]

This is a shot in the dark.....

I'm working on a Dell PowerVault 715N and I'm having a issue with drive recognition. There are 4 x 250GB Western Digital WD2500JB drives in the machine. The problem I am having is that 2 of the drives are showing up as their correct capacities (250GB). The other 2 drives are only showing up as 127GB. According to Computer Management, the two drives that are showing up as 250GB are IDE and the other two are SCSI. All of the drives physically appear to be on the same controller.

Any ideas on how I can get all the drives to show up correctly?

[Worsel]

While I have my own problems with the 715N, I may have the answer to yours. The 715N has two drive controllers, one for drive 0 and 1, and the other for 2 and 3. Drives 2 and 3 are usually the problem. Their controller is a Promise controller and you probably need an update in Windows 2000. It is an Ultra 100 controller and is on the Promise website. Download and install in the 715N's Windows 2000 and it should recognize the increased size of the drives. Let me know if this does or does not work.

What process did you use for the drive upgrade? All at once reinstalling the system or a drive at a time? Good luck!

[darkrider01]

Actually, I found the answer on the Dell forums. I updated the BIOS to A06 and installed the latest Win2000 drivers from the Promise website. It took me a few tries as when I was installing the drivers I wasn't overwriting newer files. As soon as I told it to overwrite newer files, it worked perfectly. Also, to answer your question, we had replaced all the drives at the same time. The biggest difficulty I had was finding the correct driver for the embedded Ultra100 controller. It is kinda hidden on the Promise website.