Hard drive disappeared after using Storage Space

I migrated my SSD and two WD Blue 2TB hard drives to a new build. The two drives were originally a mirrored array. I wiped them in anticipation of the move to the new machine (old case had 9 3.5 drive bays, new case had 2). I converted the drives to basic disks and cloned my old data drive (not C drive) to one of the discs. I planned on setting up a new mirrored array in the new machine. The two HDDs were slightly different in size and I had to shrink the new cloned drive to the same size as the slightly smaller disk I was trying to add to the array. No matter what I did, I could not get the drives to mirror (when I clocked on mirror after getting the drives to the same size, I could not locate it in the mirror drive screen). I finally saw something that said to use storage space to get it to set up so I started to set up the drive (WD Blue) then closed storage spaces without completing the set up because it looked like it would wipe the data on my data drive. When I closed the storae spaces screen, the allocated drive disappeared from Disk management and I can not seem to get it back. The HDD shows up in BIOS and in Device Manager but it will not show up in Disk management. I have already performed rescan disk and tried to refresh Disk management multiple times. Any Ides what I did wrong or what I am missing? Running WIN10 Pro 64 bit version 1909 (OS Build 18363.778). Thanks In Advance

Run:

Code:

diskpart
list disk

Does it show up there?

No it doesn't.

At admin powershell prompt, run

Code:

get-storagepool
get-physicaldisk
get-virtualdisk

and paste results here.

Many problems here.
1. You said "two WD Blue 2TB" and "The two HDDs were slightly different in size" - rather different partitioning used.
2. What software/hardware RAID1 you tried to establish. If Dynamic Disk Mirrored Volume in Windows, you need at least Pro version of Windows to do it. Or RAID type specification and exact error msg needed for troubleshooting.
3. What you did in Storage Spaces. If you added some disks into storage pool, these disks were repartitioned using gpt scheme and partially overwritten. Mirroring of existing disk is not possible in Storage Spaces. Nevertheless, you've been warned, see image.
4. Are your data backed up. If no and my guess in paragraph 3 is right, only advanced data recovery may partially restore them.

muchomurka said:

At admin powershell prompt, run

Code:

get-storagepool
get-physicaldisk
get-virtualdisk

and paste results here.

indows PowerShell
Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Try the new cross-platform PowerShell Installing PowerShell - PowerShell | Microsoft Docs

PS C:\Users\GP40X> get-storagepool

FriendlyName OperationalStatus HealthStatus IsPrimordial IsReadOnly Size AllocatedSize
------------ ----------------- ------------ ------------ ---------- ---- -------------
Storage pool OK Healthy False False 1.82 TB 256 MB
Primordial OK Healthy True False 4.55 TB 1.82 TB


PS C:\Users\GP40X> get-physicaldisk

Number FriendlyName SerialNumber MediaType CanPool OperationalStatus HealthStatus Usage Size
------ ------------ ------------ --------- ------- ----------------- ------------ ----- ----
2 WDC WD20EZRZ-00Z5HB0 WD-WCC4M0RRU2FP HDD False OK Healthy Auto-Select 1.82 TB
1 WDC WD20EZRZ-00Z5HB0 WD-WCC4M4PYAD20 HDD False OK Healthy Auto-Select 1.82 TB
0 Samsung SSD 860 EVO 1TB S3Z8NB0KA30888Z SSD False OK Healthy Auto-Select 931.51 GB


PS C:\Users\GP40X> get-virtualdisk
PS C:\Users\GP40X> get-virtualdisk
PS C:\Users\GP40X> get-virtualdisk
PS C:\Users\GP40X>

I tried to get the virtual disk information 3 different times but nothing came up.

Here is a screen shot of my disk management screen.



In my old 'puter the two WD drives were a mirrored array F: drive and my old Hitachi 1TB drive was my original H: lettered data drive. In preparation to move my driver to the new case, I broke the mirrored drive on purpose wiping both drives to clone my Data drive to one of the 2TB drives in anticippation of the move to the new case.. I then cloned the old Hitachi H: drive to one of the Western Digital 2TB drives. Both are the exact same model number but were manufactured 6 months apart (I planed it this way to not get identical hard drives from the same batch for the mirrored array). The original drive was 1862.89 GB but the new drive was 1863.01 GB. When I originally set up the mirrored array I added the newerslightly larger drive to make the array. When I cloned the drive, I accidentally cloned to the larger newer drive. Disk Management would not allow me to add the slightly smaller drive to set up a new mirrored array. That is when I shrunk the drive to 1862.89 GB from 1863.01 GB make it match the older drive at 1862.89. It still would not let me add the drive to a mirror and that is when I opened up Storage Spaces after finding something on the web about using storage spaces to set up a mirror and that is when I really messed up. I opened storage spaces and clicked the check box for the unallocated drive and saw that if I used both drives to set up a storage space, it would wipe the data on my newly loaded H Drive so I closed out Storage Spaces and that when my WD 1862.89GB unallocated drive disappeared from the disk management screen and I have not been able to locate it in WIN 10 since. NOTE: I am running WIN10 Pro 64 bit version 1909 (OS Build 18363.778) and have previously set up a mirrored array using these two drives.

- - - Updated - - -

[QUOTE=muchomurka;1927729]Many problems here.
1. You said "two WD Blue 2TB" and "The two HDDs were slightly different in size" - rather different partitioning used.
2. What software/hardware RAID1 you tried to establish. If Dynamic Disk Mirrored Volume in Windows, you need at least Pro version of Windows to do it. Or RAID type specification and exact error msg needed for troubleshooting.
3. What you did in Storage Spaces. If you added some disks into storage pool, these disks were repartitioned using gpt scheme and partially overwritten. Mirroring of existing disk is not possible in Storage Spaces. Nevertheless, you've been warned, see image.
4. Are your data backed up. If no and my guess in paragraph 3 is right, only advanced data recovery may partially restore them.

1. Yes the drives are the same model number but were manufactured 6 months apart so I would lessen the chance of a double hard drive failure by getting drives from different batches.
2. It was a WIN 10 Pro mirrored array as I have WIN 10 and these drives were previously set up as a mirrored array (I was originally backing the H; drive up the the F: drive mirrored array).
3. That is why I did not follow through using storage spaces because I did not want to wipe the freshly loaded data on the 2TB new H: Drive
4. Except for a few images and some updating this week on my monthly bills spreadsheet, I am basically backed up because I still have the original H: drive I cloned last Saturday. Once I get everything set up and working I will set up a Data backup to the cloud and to a NAS I am planning to build soon for so9me true redundancy.

Bad news, CanPool for both disks is False which means they are already repartitioned as members of storage pool. Virtual disk was not created (and therefore is not visible in Disk Mgmt) as you realize something goes wrong - too late. So you surely did the first step, adding disks to storage pool. Destructive enough, no need to do second step - creating virtual disk.

Sorry you did not specify technology which you previously used for mirroring. If it were Dynamic Disks with Mirrored Volume, the disks can be transferred to other computer, then it is possible to "Import" them in Disk Mgmt. So the whole problem is a bit pointless in this case.

Different disk size - when creating RAID mirror, size of the smaller one should be used automatically. When mirroring existing disk (not possible in Storage Spaces), new empty disk should be greater or equal.

Some recommendation - keep the H: disk safe (disconnect it for now) and start from scratch - remove the Storage Pool, create new mirror (rather Dynamic Disks Mirrored Volume than Storage Spaces mirror) and then copy data to it.

Every RAID is an advanced technology which requires knowledge, otherwise loss of big amount of data is possible. And especially Storage Spaces require very competent administrator, familiar with theoretical concepts and routine usage of powershell.

But how do I find the second drive? It does not show up at all in Disk manager and is only recognized by device manager, not disk manager.

GP40X said:

But how do I find the second drive? It does not show up at all in Disk manager and is only recognized by device manager, not disk manager.

Open Storage Spaces applet, check the Storage pool (it should contain your two disks), delete the Storage pool. Then the disks will be visible in Disk Mgmt.

muchomurka said:

Open Storage Spaces applet, check the Storage pool (it should contain your two disks), delete the Storage pool. Then the disks will be visible in Disk Mgmt.

Thank you, that fixed it. I had never used Storage Space before. Setting up the mirror now