Problem setting up asrock x58 extreme raid for Windows 7 / Vista.

[konung]

Hello everyone.

I'm building a home system using asrock x58 extreme MB and trying to setup RAID 5.

Followed instructions in manual, configured BIOS and RAID 5 in RAID utility screen (Ctrl +I). When Win 7 starts up, it offers me to load driver for a drive it sees ( which it sees as one big drive of 4.1 TB). Sees my floppy ( I also tried USB drive & CD) , sees drivers ( I tried drivers both from Manufacturer's website and Intel's website), and says it can't load appropriate drivers. I wonder if I'm doing something wrong. I also tried the same process with Windows Vista, with no success.
I tried to proceed without installing drivers - but Windows want's to format my 4.1TB drive into a 2048MB drive, and then it says it can't use it.
Does anyone have any idea?


A few more details:

Using 4 x 1.5 TB Seagate Barracudas in RAID 5 for 4.1 TB of usable space (Maybe there is a limit on the size of RAID I can use with this MB?)

I7 - windows 7 and windows Vista are both 64-bit.

I just got my 2 new Barracudas, so before that this system was setup with Windows Vista Ultimate and ran on one drive ( no raid) just fine for about 2 weeks. So I know that hardware is good and runs fine in non-raid mode.

Thank you in advance for any help guys and gals.

 

[kufan64]

I could be wrong, but I believe that all Windows operating systems have a maximum bootable volume limitation of 2TB. You can have a maximum RAID size of 256TB, but Windows cannot be booted from a volume that is larger than 2TB.

There are several things you should be able to do in this situation:
1) Partition the drive so that Windows is on a smaller (100GB should be plenty) partition and use the remaining disk space for all your data storage and installing applications to.
2) Remove one drive from your RAID 5 setup and use it as a stand-alone drive to install Windows to. Use the RAID 5 setup for data storage and and to install applications to.
3) Purchase a 5th drive and use it as a stand-alone drive to install Windows to. Use the RAID 5 setup for data storage and and to install applications to.

Hope this helps you out.

 

[konung]

kufan - thank you for a reply. So I was doing everything right I never ran into this problem before ( I either used windows xp with much smaller drives, and all my RAID servers at work run Debian ) It did seem suspicious that the Windows would only format a drive up to 2048MB Such a whole number.

Looks like I will have to use a smaller drive for windows partition and use raid for everything else.
Thanks.

 

[Guest]

kufan - thank you for a reply. So I was doing everything right I never ran into this problem before ( I either used windows xp with much smaller drives, and all my RAID servers at work run Debian ) It did seem suspicious that the Windows would only format a drive up to 2048MB Such a whole number.

Looks like I will have to use a smaller drive for windows partition and use raid for everything else.
Thanks.

Kufan,
Are your Debian RAID5 servers using hardware or software RAID5??

 

[konung]

MrUmunhum

I think you confused me with Kufan - I was the one who said I run Raid 5 on Debian servers. I have a couple where I run Lenny on software Raid, however most of the critical stuff runs off the Hitachi SAN using RAID6 and using iSCSI.

 

[Guest]

MrUmunhum

I think you confused me with Kufan - I was the one who said I run Raid 5 on Debian servers. I have a couple where I run Lenny on software Raid, however most of the critical stuff runs off the Hitachi SAN using RAID6 and using iSCSI.

Konung,
You are correct I did confuse you two.
I am setting up an ASUS server that has hardware RAID and I am having problems with it. It is running a fresh install of Fedora Core 12. When the system is booted it find the 4 x 2TB drives but only uses 1.6TB. I have found out that this is a hardware limitation of the Intel chipset of the ASUS motherboard. Another problem is that the CPU loops on an mdadm application. It pegs at 100%. I was wondering if this is normal? Seems broken to me?

 

[puresa]

A little late reading this but theres a program not a driver that u can download from asrock so the system sees the + 2 TB disks.
http://www.asrock.com/mb/Intel/X58%20Extreme6/index.nl.asp?cat=Download