Siig sata drive size limits

[phecksel]

Hello,
older MSI P4MAMV2 MB with Siig 150 SATA II card. It won't recognize the 2T drive, but two other similar Siig cards are all recognizing 1T drives. IS it the controller card, base MB construction, or bios level?

 

[WyomingKnott]

2T drives are a different animal; they go over the limits of what can be handled with the old-style partition table and have to be partitioned with a GPT-style partition table. Many motherboards / controllers simply cannot handle 2T-plus drives.

You can search for some of the excellent responses in this forum on this particular topic, or I could get not-lazy and edit this post with some links.

Just to make sure I understood the original post: 1T drives can be read by these controllers, the 2T drive can't. Is that correct?

 

[Hawkeye22]

I don't think there should be a problem with 2T drives. The limit for MBR is 2.19T. It's the newer 3T drives that require special handling and formatting with GPT.

Can the firmware/bios on the SIIG card be updated? If so, do it.

 

[phecksel]

1T can be read, but not 2T

Can the bios be updated, yes, but the mfg's easy update app fails (website issue), and naturally the update instructions were written chinese, converted to German, adapted in French before finally being translated to English!

I don't know if the SATA controller cards can be updated.

 

[Hawkeye22]

This looks like the bios for your mobo, but I don't think that will have an effect. I think the bios on the SIIG cards needs updated. Do you have a make/model for the SIIG card?

http://www.msi.com/product/mb/P4MAM2-V.html#/?div=BIOS

 

[phecksel]

It appears that MSI is not doing much to support the MB (any MB?) The web bios update is broken, the downloadable bios program is broken, and to manually update the bios requires a bootable winxp floppy? What's this floppy thing? LOL

Anyway, this is turning into too much of a project with too many risks. So, for now I'm going to return the 2T drive and get another 1T drive, which should hold me for another year-ish. But, it's highlighting the fact this server needs a new MB Which in itself is going to make for an interesting project fraught with risks.

Thanks to everybody for their help!