It sounds like raid may already be configured through the bios. Have you checked that?
You are totally right, it was RAID 5 setup in the BIOS. Thanks for your help.
Sounds like the drives are combined with RAID 5. Could be hardware RAID card or software RAID as part of the BIOS. Server model number can be used to search for administrator manual and may have more info there. If it's hardware RAID card then try to find the model number & search for it's manual. If it's software raid at the BIOS level then motherboard/server manual will cover it. Should be some messages and prompts during boot related to it. Terms to look for 'RAID', 'storage controller', 'Perc', 'LSI'.
You were absolutely right, it was a RAID 5 setup that I had totally overlooked. Thank you! All better now.
Oh duh, that makes sense. I didn't see any software RAID setup but wasn't looking for it specifically in the BIOS. Hardware RAID would also make sense. Thank you for the tips!
It could be in the bios or have a separate bios for the RAID system. Sometimes you will see it flash on screen as it boots. Like: F6 for RAID configuration
Does it have a hardware RAID card? You may have to flash it to IT mode. The 'lost' drive may be just a parity drive?
If it is a hardware raid, would the boot sequence offer a raid setup choice before the OS boots?
Typically nobody is going to use raid 0 and give you access to all the drives. I suspect your system is set up for raid-5 so 3 drives are data one is parity.
When the system boots there'll be a prompt to press something like ctrl-D to enter disk setup then you can delete the raid array and set up each disk as individual drives.
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