P8Z68 Deluxe/Gen3 SATA Config Help

Hi, In Windows, right click My computer, choose Manage, then Disk management. Right click the 240GB one and initialize it. For the 3TB one, right click and convert it to GPT.

If they are brand new drives, they will need to be initialized in windows.

Right click on My Computer, then click Manage. Click on Disk Management on the left panel.

It should pop up a box asking to initialize disk. It is best in most cases to use the MBR option as opposed to GPT.

If it doesn't pop up a box, on the bottom half of the screen are all the drives that windows sees. Right click on the new drives, and choose format. It is probably best to use NTFS.

Haha I just realized I'm on the UK/Ireland forum when I'm in the US, oh well not a big deal.

Anyway, yes I've checked the windows disk management but it doesn't show the 2 new drives for some reason, even when rescanning.

It lists my 90gb and 1tb, my cd drive, and system reserved

They are seen in BIOS, but not in Disk Management, that's weird. Try inserting an Windows install DVD, boot from it and see if the HDDs are seen there. If yes, format the 240GB one and use Shift+F10 for diskpart and GPT format the 3TB one.

Ok I will give that a shot, was at lunch. Will let you know how it goes.

Ok... I'm at the drive selection screen where I pick a drive to install windows.

As follows:
Disk 0 Partition 1: Slave Drive 931.5GB - Primary (my 1TB)
Disk 1 Unallocated Space 2048.0GB - (Blank) (this appears to be the 3Tb but it's split)
Disk 1 Unallocated Space 746.5GB - (Blank) (the rest of the 3TB)
Disk 2 Unallocated Space 223.6GB - (Blank) (the 240GB SSD)
Disk 3 Partition 1: System Reserved 100.0MB - System
Disk 3 Partition 2 83.7GB - Primary (90GB SSD)


If I hit advanced drive settings it shows the options to: Delete, Format, New, Extend.
Everything except New is greyed out for the Unallocated drives.

I selected New for 2048GB and 223GB drives. That changed it to Disk 1 Partition 1 -Primary and Disk 2 Partition 1 - Primary. The options Delete and Format became available, I formatted them both.

Except the other 750GB of the 3TB when I try to select new for it I get an error: "Failed to create a new partition in the selected unused space. [Error: 0x80042468]"

Upon exiting the install and returning to Windows the 2 new drives show up but the 3TB is now limited to 2TB.

Try using diskpart for GPT converting the 3TB one http://support.microsoft.com/kb/297800 steps 1 to 4

I'm confused by step 5.

Step 1 - 4 I did but at step 4: "NOTE: This step does not create the GPT partition information."

Step 5: "At the prompt, type: create name="efi system partition" type=efisys Size=102 to create the Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) partition.

NOTE: The name can be anything you want, but if the name has spaces in it, the name must have quotes around it. The type must equal either Efisys, Msres, or Msdata. If a size is not specified, the partition uses the remaining unpartitioned space. To install Windows XP, the Msdata partition must contain at least 2 gigabytes (GB) of free space."

Which I did but it doesn't do anything, I typed: create name="efi system partition" type=efisys Size=102

E: added 2 quotes. removed them.

EE: Right now I have the options to type: Partition (Create a partition), Volume (Create a volume), or Vdisk (Create a virtual disk file)

Nope. The disk is now MBR (you should have used Shift+F10 for diskpart before formatting it) and it will not see more than 2GB. Use disk management in Windows - delete the partition, right click the disk and convert it to GPT.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26193-convert-mbr-disk-gpt-disk.html

Right clicking the disk in disk management gives me the options: Open, Explore, Mark Partition as Active, Change Drive Letter and Paths, Format, Extend Volume, Shrink Volume, Delete Volume, Properties, Help.

Checked all the options and I don't see the option to change to GPT.

Delete firstly the volume, then right click the disk tab, not the unallocated space one.

I deleted the volume and now the drive no longer shows up on Disk Management.

Weird indeed. Then use method two here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26193-convert-mbr-disk-gpt-disk.html
Take care to correctly identify the disk.

Wait scratch that, I see it, I converted to GPT but it still says unallocated and doesn't show up on the list of drives.

E: Wait, right clicking on the Unallocated gives me the option to do a "New Simple Volume" do I do that?

Woo!!! Alright I now have the full 3TB (well 2.72TB but w/e).

Thank you for all the amazing help!

Best answer selected by DKRises.