Installing windows 7 on a 4tb hard drive

Forum Systems : New Build Installing windows 7 on a 4tb hard drive

Hello,
I am trying to install Windows 7 64bit on 4 2TB WD hardrives, setup as Raid 10.. i have 4TB of useable storage on this array, and i am struggling to install Windows 7 on this partition, i have loaded the Raid Drivers for this and The installation detects the hard drive and installs until the required restart, advising that it cannot complete the installation, and have to try and reinstall, does anyone have any suggestions of how to complete this installation

Reply to wigglywoo

I believe you are going to have to install Win 7 to a partition smaller than 3TB. So, create a partition for Win 7 and then another for your massive RAID. There are several articles throughout the web that talks about the 3TB limitation with BIOS based computers. You may have created those conditions with your config.

Reply to COLGeek

I'll give that a go thanks, not the way i wanted the system but looks like I'm out of options back soon

Reply to wigglywoo

Good luck!

Reply to COLGeek

Failed again after resizing the partitions, also failed installing on Raid 1 configuration with 2 x 2tb drives, new drives. Ill be back in approx 15 hours as i've ran out of time on it for today

Reply to wigglywoo

What manufacturer & model are the hard drives? (Model # if available.)

I have heard rumors that WD (and possibly other manufacturers) are intentionally crippling RAID implementation on certain drives. I don't have any first-hand experience to back that up, but it's something to consider/research.

Message edited by coldsleep on 09-09-2010 at 06:22:24 PM

Reply to coldsleep

Do you have the option to install Win 7 on a single HDD first and then install the RAID afterwards? Not optimal, but separating in this manner does help with both the install and isolating your OS (should it ever get borked) from your data. Many folks are doing this with SSDs these days, as an example.

Reply to COLGeek

Unless you have an EFI based motherboard you can't boot from a partition greater than 2.1TB.

Reply to sp12

Morning.... back on the job no luck up until now... Created a small partition on the Raid 10 hard drive.. 40Gb, still getting problems when it comes to install, seems to be the same error.. windows could not prepare the computer to boot into the next phase of the installation.

the current setup of the machine is an ASUS Crosshair IV mb, 6 x 2 TB WestDig wd20ears Green. 4 making up Raid 10 on connections 1 - 4. and the remaining 2 drives on Raid 1.

Reply to wigglywoo

Guessing its something to do with the actual Raid Setup Size, rather than the partition sizes.. Will try setting up the Raid 1 as the main installation, and the Raid 10 as the Data drive.

Reply to wigglywoo

The problem came down to the size of the disk, regardless of partition sizes on the drive, the initial install, when i tried on Raid 1, failed as it tried to utilize the 4TB for boot . thanks for the help and suggestions

Message edited by wigglywoo on 09-10-2010 at 01:22:58 PM

Reply to wigglywoo

Were you able to successfully load Win 7?

Reply to COLGeek

I was successful in the sense i have a running system , i was hoping to get it installed onto the 4TB drive however that was not possible, i have had to install it on to the raid 1 hard drive 2TB, which is not ideal. I will look into it further and hopefully i can find a solution

Message quoted 1 times

Reply to wigglywoo

wigglywoo wrote :

There is no solution until hardware makers implement the new changes, until then just like everyone else we all have to wait.

In all of this nonsense only one person said a key point, but look like that was ignored in all this mumble jumble.

sp12 mentioned you need a UEFI bios supported motherboard?i
Do you have that? If not then don't even bother.

Booting from a HDD larger than 2TB

1. Motherboard must support a UEFI bios
2. HDD must be partition into GPT
3. OS must be 64bit

Currently you can only running HDD larger than 2TB as data drives and again partition into GPT if you want to use the thing as a whole. Partitioning into MBR and the OS will automatically split it into half (2TB/2TB).

There is a possible solution, useda Apple based system as they boot from UEFI...?

Reply to lp231

Sorry to jump in here but...

...How do we find out if we can use UEFI on our mobo?

Is there any site we can go to that can tell us if we might be able to replace BIOS with UEFI on whatever board we have or is this just not possible?

Cheers for any more info, I am in the same situation as wigglywoo.

Reply to Darfyddi

Hey guys,

To install on partitions over 2TB on Windows please visit this link: http://social.technet.microsoft.co [...] 0373e8f037

Step by step instructions using diskpart.

Prereq: UEFI mode and not BIOS. Changing the mode depends on the mobo manufacturer, check out the manual for details.

Reply to invulnarable27