Installing Win 7 x64 on 3TB HDD (HELP!)

[dodge586]

Hi,
I'm getting really desperate for some help with my HTPC.

I have just purchased a Hitachi Deskstar 3TB HDD with a view to partitioning it as 80GB for the OS and the remainder available as storage for movies and other media.

Having researched it all I should require as an EFI enabled motherboard, Windows 7 X64 and the drive set as GPT rather than MBR.

Note the requirements differ if you are running a 32 bit OS, or adding the drive as an additional storage only device.

My motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-A75M-D2H this as an AMD (FM1) Llano chipset which is EFI enabled.

The BIOS or rather EFI happily reports the HDD as 3TB.

Unfortunately I've been having a major drama getting Windows 7 (X64 ultimate) to play ball.

Initially it insisted on creating a 2TB partition then another 800GB one and using MBR to do it. I was unable to expand the partition beyond 2.2 TB.

So I thought I'd use GetParted (linux boot CD) to set the partitions the way I want. I changed to using GPT, created my single 80GB partition and set the remaining ~2.8TB as another partition for storage.

Went through the motions of reinstalling Windows, it sees the partitions but can't install to them because (of all reasons) they are using GPT - which is what I have to use and Windows claims to support!!!

I went back into Getparted, deleted all the partitions but left the drive as GPT and the full 3TB as unpartitioned space. Windows installer sees the full size and is able to install to the unparitioned space (remember the drive is still set as GPT). However when installation is complete the drive is limited to ~2TB of space and I can't partition/format the unallocated space into anything useable.

If anyone can help I'd really appreciate it, all I want is an 80GB OS partition to boot from and the rest set aside for storage!

 

[feck199]

I did think make sure you are booting the EFI version of the install. You normally have two options at boot device selection. One will not want to install to GPT, and one will.

I've seen the error message before but i wasn't bothered about drive sizes.

 

[dodge586]

Ok, this is still not going to plan...

I have been following the excellent guide to SSD/HDD setup and optimisation at http://www.overclock.net/t/1156654/...ptimization-guide-for-ssds-hdds#post_15521910

I have posted in the thread there but will also replicate here as somone is bound to encounter this problem/know the answer:


What I have:
Gigabyte GA-A75M-D24 motherboard. (AMD Llano based) Note that Gigabyte claim the following:

DualBIOS™ 3TB+ HDD Support (Hybrid EFI Technology)
Hybrid EFI Technology combines the benefits of GIGABYTE's mature BIOS platform including stability and compatibility with 3rd party products with 3TB+ HDD support from EFI technology, allowing GIGABYTE to offer the best of both worlds through a quick and easy BIOS update using GIGABYTE's @BIOS utility that is freely available from the GIGABYTE website.

GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ is a patented technology that automatically recovers BIOS data when the main BIOS has crashed or failed. Featuring 2 physical BIOS ROMs integrated onboard, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ allows quick and seamless recovery from BIOS damage or failure due to viruses or improper BIOS updating. In addition, GIGABYTE DualBIOS™ now supports 3TB+ (terabyte) hard drive booting without the need for partitioning, and enables more data storage on a single hard drive.

http://www.gigabyte.eu/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3930#ov

Win 7 X64 SP1 DVD.
Hitachi Deskstar 3TB 5400RPM HDD

Might be worth noting that Gigabyte claim a Hybrid EFI BIOS which really doesnt look like a UEFI implementation at all, it looks and feels very much like a legacy Award BIOS from back in the day.

In any case, these are what I beleive to be the only relevant settings:

CMOS Setup Utility

Integrated Peripherals:
OnChip SATA controller: Enabled
OnChip SATA type: AHCI

Advanced BIOS features:
EFI CD/DVD Boot Option: EFI

It does indeed appear to be booting the EFI version of the Win 7 install as the \Windows\Panther\setupact.log contains the following:

Callback_BootEnvironmentDetect: Detected boot environment: EFI

Note that I have seen some people's logs report UEFI boot enviroment vs my EFI - significant??

I have used to diskpart to successfully create the required partitions and convert to GPT. LIS DIS shows Disk 0 online and a capacity of 2794GB using GPT.

The installer shows

Disk 0 Partition 1 ESP @100MB
Disk 0 Partition 2 @ 128MB
Disk 0 Partition 3 @ 2794.3GB

However when I try to insall I get the following error:

Windows cannot be installed to this disk. This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disks controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.

So assuming Gigabyte are not lying how on earth do I get this to work?

I really am out of ideas so would appreciate any advice or suggestions.

Thanks

 

[Idleman]

Can i ask why you are using a 5400RPM HDD as a boot drive, i would only use that as a storage drive.
Have you tried with IDE selected?

 

[dodge586]

Because i'm not bothered about performance... it's only for XBMC so there really isn't a case for anything faster, it's more important to keep noise and power requirments down. I think I have tried with IDE selected, but I will double check later.

Ta

 

[StephenLawUK]

You could probably save yourself some time and headache by just getting any old 80GB HDD to install your OS to. It's not really gonna cost you much especially if you get one 2nd hand. If your lacking space in the PC you could even go to putting some 2.5" laptop drive in as the OS drive.

 

[Rik1254]

Personally would have gone 2TB + SSD for boot. Assuming you bought from OCUK, the cheapest 3TB is £180, whereas the cheapest SDD is ~£60 and 2TB HDD is ~£100.
Unless you already have the data, I doubt your going to fill up a 2TB HDD anytime soon.

Anyway, my friend has this problem, he ended up hacing to partition 100GB for his OS, 1TB for games and the rest (~1.6TB) for storage, something with windows being stupid and wouldnt accept a partition above 2TB. Was on an Asus board though, so might be different with you.