Windows 10 Add Mirror is disabled...

Question

I had to shut off my server and move some drives around. After restarting, I noticed that one of my mirrored DATA drives were "missing" and on inspection noticed that the a removable sled was not fully engaged. So, shutdown the machine and properly reinserted and locked the sled - then restarted. Windows now showed the drive as "Foreign". Can't be sure, but I think my only option was to Import... which I did.

Now I have two Dynamic Healthy disks - but no mirror... and on either disk, the "Add mirror" is disabled - greyed out.

Explored each drive contents - looks like they are both all there.

How do I re-establish the mirror in these two drives?

PS: Someone really needs to establish a better set of tags for this tool. They are pretty poor.

Answer 1

Hello

Thank you for your question and reaching out. I can understand you are having query\issues related to Disk mirroring in Windows.

It's crucial that the disk you're adding has no volumes and should be the same size as or larger than the source disc. Deleting volume is therefore necessary. The "Mirror" option on the source disc will stop being greyed out as soon as Disk Management locates an unassigned disc that is appropriately large.

Make sure they are GPT if its more than 2 TB in size.

--If the reply is helpful, please Upvote and Accept as answer--

Answer 2

Lets base discussions on the premise that for the past number of years I had a properly working mirror - and therefore all variables that allow a mirror were previously considered.

Then, I might actually get some useful information. Specifically, I need instruction on how to link these two drives back again as a mirror.

I would also like to know why the mirror failed; just because I restarted the machine with a drive unattached. Is Windows Disk Management THAT fragile?

I also had expectations that re-importing it would relink the two. I guess not?

Anyway - as they say - a picture is worth a thousand words - see attached image showing the two healthy Dynamic/GPT drives.

Let me know...

Answer 3

Based on your comments above, can you confirm that you want me to delete the DATA (D:) volume on Disk 3, so that I have 100% completely unallocated space.... and that this action would allow for the "Add Mirror..." menu to be available on the DATA (E:) volume on Disk 1?

Sorry for being so explicit here but I just want to make sure that - under the circumstances - there is no chance for some miscommunication.