Trouble replacing a hard drive

Thanks for your help Camelot. To answer your questions...

I am attempting to replace one of the existing SAS hard drives with a SATA hard drive in the bay 3 drive module.

I am following the manual on the Apple site "073 - 1178 Rev. A" for replacing the drive.

After installing the hard drive I need to format the drive. The manual says to boot to the install DVD that came with the server. I am using the "Mac OS X Server Xserve Install DVD", not a third party disc.

The drive module light comes on green when inserted, but it does not mount on its own... I was assuming this was because it is not yet formatted.

The install disc does not mount when inserted, it just self-ejects after a short period.

I have not checked if the Enclosure was locked, but I assume that I would not be able to remove the drive module if it was. Is that correct?

Checked the enclosure lock. I think it is unlocked, the dot on the hex screw is closest to the unlocked padlock icon.

I am not trying to make a boot drive, just storage. What would be the reason the hard drive is not mounting?

What should normally happen when installing the drive?

The DVD will mount on a different machine, but if I do not need an install disc to install the drive I will worry about that later... assuming the reason why I cannot mount the hard drive is unrelated to not being able to mount the DVD.

There's no need to bother with a DVD, insert the Drive Module, launch Disk Utility > Go Menu > Utilities, select the Drive and format it.

The hard drive does not display in Disk Utility after inserting the drive module.

Is it formatted? A blank drive may not have any partition data on it, so there may be nothing to mount.

I do not believe it is formatted, it is a new OEM drive from Newegg.

At this point just insert the disk and run Disk Utility.app. Does the disk appear in Disk Utility? Can you format it from there?

Are you referring to the Apple Server Install DVD? I cannot get the server to read the DVD. Neither the DVD nor the hard drive shows up in Disk Utility.

The new drive is a 2TB drive. That isn't over the capacity limit for the server is it?

Would trying to format the drive on a workstation computer then installing the drive on the server work?

System Profiler on the server indicates the optical drive is a Matshita DVD-R, and indicates it can read and write DVDs.

It's the slot type drive, not the tray type. I've tried mounting a CD with no luck as well. I think I have an optical drive failure.

The drive I am replacing is a 750GB SAS drive, it has two other of these drives installed.

Camelot wrote:
True, Scott, except that the original XServe was PATA, not SATA, so the OP wouldn't have been able to install a SATA drive in the first place. In addition he's using the Server Install disk, so the system should be able to boot from it - although, in retrospect, he doesn't say that it's the install disk that came with the server, so maybe you're right.

We'll need to wait for the OP to post back with confirmation of the XServe model to know for sure.

I think I may have a optical drive failure since other non-system discs will not mount either. Will formatting the drive on another machine allow the drive to mount on the server? I would like to address the optical drive later if possible.

I double checked System Profiler, and it does say the model is "Xserve 1,1". Our older server model name is "MacRack 1,1"

The drive I am replacing is a 750GB SAS drive (non-boot). My research indicates SATA drives are compatible, but I could not find a capacity limit (trying to install a 2TB drive).

Message was edited by: jodyb17

Thought I would update this thread. I decided to try formatting the drive in another machine.

For some reason Disk Utility on the workstation was able to see the hard drive, but Disk Utility on the server did not.

I formatted the drive using the workstation and the Server now will mount the drive.

Now I am off to fix the optical drive.

Thanks