Disk Management won't extend volume size after adding to RAID 5 array

[PortlandGTS]

Hello,

I'm using Intel Rapid Storage Technology to implement a RAID 5 array. I just added a 4 disk drive to the array. Everything wnet OK until the final step: Using Windows disk management to increased the volume size. I've posted a screen shot below. The volume is named 'Media". When I right click it, the extend volume item is grayed out. I've checked everthing I can think of, and can't find anyything wrong. I am running as administrator.

Please help!

Tom Dingwall

 

[Dude]

Been reading up on Raid again to try and help you. Cant find an answer for you but you should be able to rebuild the Raid without losing data.
Hopefully someone more knowledgeable will come along to help you

 

[benjy206]

From my experience when i use to have RAID Before i applied raid i had to set the size of the volume first. After that i could not resize the HD.

Is there much data on it?

 

[benjy206]

Another options i just seen. If you press Ctrl + I That will make it a non RAID drive and you can extend the volume and then just make it RAID again

 

[PortlandGTS]

Maybe I wasn't clear. I'm adding another drive to an existing Raid 5 array. The instructions for the Intel RST application say that after adding a disk you must use Disk Management to increase the volume size. The 981 Gb unallocated space you see is the 1Tb disk that I added, and which should be included in the Raid array.

My array has almost 2Tb of data, so I don't really want to destroy it and then rebuild it. Adding the drive included data migration to the new disk. So the 'unallocated space' is not really unallocated; it contains parts of my file system. Now random files in the array are inaccessible but show up in Windows Explorer. I assume this is because Wndows performs checks to stop file access to disk regions it thinks are unallocated.

So I'm really hesitant to do anything but complete the process like the instructions say. Or at least understand why Windows is graying out the 'Extend Volume', so I can figure out what needs to be done.

Thanks,
Tom