Why can I only create 1 2TB volume in Windows 2008 R2?

Question

I have a Dell 2950 with 6 1TB SAS drives in a RAID 5 array, when I created the array I was informed it would be split across 2 connectors (connector 0 connector 1). I went ahead and thought I'd extend the volume in Windows but I can't.

I'm left with 1 2TB partition and 1 2.7TB partition (plus a 80GB Windows partition), I can create a simple volumn on the 2TB partition but I'm unable to extend this on to the 2.7TB partition. I can't do anything with the 2.7TB partition, when I right click it I have no options available, they are all greyed out.

Where does my problem lie? Thanks

Answer 1

Sounds like the 2.7Tb partition was created as GPT/EFI. Check out this FAQ at Microsoft for more info.

if you want to change that partiton you'll probably need to use the DiskPart utility. More info on that here at Microsoft

Answer 2

I had a similar experience, a Dell PowerEdge R310 running 4 x 2TB drives in a RAID 5 config. During the Windows install, It would show my Drive as 2 unallocated volumes off the same disk 0, 1st was about 2 TB and the remaining 3.5+ on the 2nd. I was not able to create a partition on this 2nd volume.

Solution for me was to create 2 Virtual Disks using the Dell System Build Utility (should have shipped with your server)... 1st one about 200GB.. to be used for the OS/etc and then allocated the remaining space to a 2nd virtual disk and start Windows setup again. Install windows to the first virtual disk and leave 2nd alone for now... once booted into windows, start the Computer Management and go to Storage/Disk Management.... you should see Disk 0 with the system reserve + your C Drive. then you will see Disk 1.... it might be showing 2 unallocated portions. Right click on Disk 1 and choose convert to GPT... this should allow you to combine the 2 unallocated portions into 1 and partition as NTFS.