"Is there some sort of raid setup that I am not understanding?"

Probably. Have you been here?

I will reiterate that the Graid (external, standalone drives used extensively for video and audio production) drives are working just fine on my other PCs, no matter how they are connected. I can, and do, move them from computer to computer for various projects. They have always shown up in Windows Explorer, and always indicate that they are full of files.

.....Except for the new 8 core Xeon......So, I guess my question about the raid setup has more to do with the Xeon computer itself. Does that fact that the Cdrive is listed as Drive 0 have any bearing on the situation?

I can move a thumb drive around, or the external BluRay burner, and they always show up, but the Graid drives only show up in DiskManager, but without allocation ,drive letters or content. Windows Explorer does not recognize their existence at all.

Both drives were initialized (or whatever term you want to apply) for PCs immediately upon opening the package, but have been working just fine on several PCs since that first experience.

I readily admit that I know little about raid in general, but the GRaid drives are configured as one big volume (one is 4TB, the other drive is 2TB).

This is not a problem I have seen before, so need advice before proceeding further and losing anymore files.

I will add that I had already formatted these drives to NTFS right from the start. There was something a bit under a terrabyte on each drive (identical info copied from one to the other on another computer).

I suppose I can go through that process again on the new computer (format new volume, etc.), then transport that drive to the old computer and copy everything over again and see what happens, but this is not the way to do business with external drives, so I would like to understand what is going on.

The GRaid page linked to above was the first place I visited when buying these drives, and where the intial instructions for reformatting to NTFS were used. I don't see anything else there about my current situation. It indicates the only reason for non-recognition should be that the drive is not formatted properly for the current computer.....which is certainly not the case.

Same OS on both computers (Win7 Pro, SP whatever....1, I think).....I really don't understand why I had to also reformat the second drive that came in the new computer in order to assign it a drive letter and change it from "unallocated".

I would focus on the new system exclusively since the G-Raid system is "supposed" to present a volume to a system with the RAID work already done.

1) Check to see if the latest motherboard chipset drivers are loaded.

2) Check any drivers required for the SATA, USB or Firewire controllers on for the new system.

Thanks......Can I assume you mean the "raid work already being done" for the new system, right?

-What "raid work" should be done on the new system? Can I get a little direction from a more experienced user on this?

As I said, when the new system arrived, Win 7 Pro was on Drive0, which was labeled as Drive C. Drive 1 was unallocated (this confused me mightily for a few days), though is not now (empty DriveD with a name now). Since nothing is on Drive 1, I can still change this. Either of my GRaid drives will appear as Drive 2 in DiskManager, but will not appear in Windows Explorer without reformatting, essentially.

Is this a raid setup issue on this system?

As a final test before getting more info, I just booted up with a little 1TB Passport drive plugged into a USB2 port. We use this drive for transferring media between computers often......Anyway, like everything except the GRaids or the second internal, it came right up with a drive letter attached and all of its files accesible.

When looking at "Computer" from the Start menu, it appears as a Hard Disk Drive, while the thumb drive is part of the Removable Storage list.....along with the external BluRay Drive and the internal DVD/CD drive.

Do you need to install a driver from G-Raid on each system to access the G-Raid? I noticed a driver folder in the download package.

Two more odd pieces of data for those out there with more computer chops than myself:

The 4TB GRaid drive has always shown up as only 2TB on the new computer, and when reformatted, only reformatted as such.

And now that it has been reformatted on the new computer, it does not show up on the old computer at all......Explorer, DiskManager, nowhere........then DiskManager asks me to format it (remember, it has been formatted and shows up on the new computer now).

Sheesh......going to try a couple of more things.

Any suggestions?

"The 4TB GRaid drive has always shown up as only 2TB on the new computer, and when reformatted, only reformatted as such."

For Windows 7 to see disks larger than 2TB, the disk must be initialized as GPT, not MBR.

To initialize new disks

In Disk Management, right-click the disk you want to initialize, and then click Initialize Disk.

In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize. You can select whether to use the master boot record (MBR) or GUID partition table (GPT) partition style.

Thanks.......might be too late, though for this particular drive. Changing to GPT does not seem to leave options for a larger partition, etc.

Still working on it. In the end, what really matters is being able to get other external drives to work on this computer at high speed.........G-Raid would be ideal, but we will see what is going on as I do more research.

It's never too late if there is no data to lose. You say the disk is 4TB, but is it 2 2TB disks mirrored for a usable space of 2 TB or 4 1TB drives in RAID 5. What's the net usable space for the array?

Try this link.

You may have to become expert with the diskpart command. I've resisted it but have been dragged through it in the past.