Can't format RAID array

[vetteguy]

I have another item in my ever-growing list of problems with my new server-I have finally managed to get it stable enough to build and maintain an array. However, when I attempt to format it, it fails. It is a 400GB array so it takes a long time to format, but when it gets to 100%, it will stay on "Formatting - 100%" and not ever tell me that it's done. I've seen it sit like this for an hour or more. If I go into the array management utility it tells me that it can't even see anything on the card. If I reboot, the RAID BIOS says the array is online and functional, but when I go back into Windows, it says that the 400GB partition is unformatted. Then I begin the whole cycle again. What is going on? I actually had this array working once upon a time, but of course I had to play around with it, and haven't gotten it working since. What is going on? Is there a problem with the RAID card? One or more of the drives? The RAID driver? I'm about ready to throw this thing out the window and get a Dell.

 

[boyRacer]

Well you can give it to me if you're going to throw it... maybe it's the RAID driver... Windows XP never detected my RAID controller... even though it's older than XP... so i had to go download new drivers.

 

[Markfw]

Are you formatting NTFS ? Are you using XP ? I don't know XP well, but if you can live with fat32 (or is that too big for fat32 ??), boot from a WIN98SE floppy, and try it at a dos prompt. Just an idea.

 

[Woodchuck2000]

Fat32 won't manage partitions that large. It's completely inappropriate for any application that would need that much storage anyway...
Are you using the latest versions of the drivers?
It's worth testing the drives individually as well just in case one of them has a slight fault. What level of raid is it?

 

[boyRacer]

Oh and there's that 137GB limit... i think you just need new drivers.

 

[vetteguy]

Well here's an update...
I reinstalled the latest drivers and upgraded the firmware on the RAID card. I then went to format, but did a "quick" format (whatever that means). After about 5 minutes of no activity it came up and said I had a healthy NTFS partition. I don't know how much I trust it yet, but I'm going to do a lot of file copying/moving to and from the array tonight to stress test it.