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We have a shining new server with 5 6Tb disks. We don't have physical access to it, so any "in BIOS do X" stuff is out of the question.

I have been "forced" by the web interface of my to pre-format one of my disks, to install Windows.

After booting into Windows and installing MegaRAID manager, I have been able to create my RAID10 array as I wished, using the remaining 4 disks.

I want to create an additional disk using the remaining space on the system disk, but now I am stuck with a 3-part disk hitting the 2tb limit of Windows, and unable to use the last part of the disk. I can create a partition on the 1.7tb part, but can't do anything on the 3.5tb part.

partitions

I can boot up in Windows PE to format the system drive, and I don't have a problem with reinstalling the OS (it's virgin and has no data).

Thanks for your help! :)

2 Answers 2

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You have a typical problem with 2TiB MBR limit. Possible solutions:

  1. Use GPT instead of MBR. But you will need to use UEFI bootloader an UEFI-compatible motherboard to boot from GPT.
  2. Create a small LUN <2TiB ib size (VD, Virtual Disk in terms of LSI MegaRAID) on your RAID controller and then create a second LUN on the same RAID group.
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We don't have physical access to it, so any "in BIOS do X" stuff is out of the question.

Then it is not a server. Any server sold in teh last maybe 8 years or so has remote KVM functionality.

I want to create an additional disk using the remaining space on the system disk, but now I am stuck with a 3-part disk hitting the 2tb limit of Windows, and unable to use the last part of the disk. I can create a partition on the 1.7tb part, but can't do anything on the 3.5tb part.

Change to another disk type... Dynamic at least supports that.

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  • "This is not a server": well, I don't really know. There are multiple boot modes, but their names are pretty cryptic and host-specific (for instance, WinPE is named WinRescue). "Change to another disk type": how do I do that on the system disk ?
    – thomasb
    Nov 5, 2014 at 10:59
  • Like on any other disc. Do not tell me you are a professional admin (requirement to ask here) without a clue how to change a disc type?
    – TomTom
    Nov 5, 2014 at 11:35
  • I am not a professional admin (I am a developer) (edit: note that I could be a beginner sysadmin and not know that), we don't have one here, and I must do without one. I have access to diskpart in WinPE. I have converted my disk to GTP but now I can't mark a primary partition as active. I'll try to fiddle with dynamic disks, but I'm going in blind, here :( Thanks for your help.
    – thomasb
    Nov 5, 2014 at 13:25
  • There are many providers out there who lease cheap servers without IPMI, or who charge extra for it (e.g. Hetzner), or worse, charge you to temporarily connect an IP KVM device whenever you actually need to do something. It's a pretty bad scene. Nov 7, 2014 at 4:12

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