RAID on Asus IPIBL-LB

[vii]

The BIOS mod works very well. Many thanks to Antinomy for the effort.
However, blinded by the victory I immediately faced another issue. I put one more hard drive in to make a RAID5 across 4 drives and to have 6 TB of storage (5.5 in fact). The thing is Windows normally cannot allocate more than 2 TB for partition. The easiest workaround is to split the whole raid set into virtual drives (no more than 2 TB each). So I created the 1st one and specified 2 TB for its size. When I tried to create the 2nd one the size field grayed out and the only size available for it is the whole rest of the raid which is 3.5 TB. (However Windows allocated only 2 TB from the second one and 1.5 remained unused.)
Does anyone know if it is a RAID controller limitation or a RAID manager “feature”?

[Antinomy]

I've never had deals with such large volumes. Why not just make a GPT partition? What's your windows version?

I'm glad it worked out.

[vii]

I've never had deals with such large volumes. Why not just make a GPT partition? What's your windows version?

I'm glad it worked out.

Yes I was thinking of GPT as of the last option. Never tried it before so need to read up first.

The Windows is Vista x64 but I am going to upgrade (or maybe to do a fresh install) to Win 7 or 2008R2. Did not decide yet. Anyway all of them should support GPT though I didn't see such an option when I was creating partitions.

[Antinomy]

This is because you can't create a bootable GPT partition - a non-EFI BIOS won't be able to boot from it. But you can make a usual one and a GPT, I suppose.

So one normal for OS and try to make the rest as GPT.

[vii]

This is because you can't create a bootable GPT partition - a non-EFI BIOS won't be able to boot from it. But you can make a usual one and a GPT, I suppose.

So one normal for OS and try to make the rest as GPT.

OS is on another raid (raid 1) and I don't need GPT there since it is only 500MB.

[vii]

GPT support seems to depend on Windows edition and at it looks like Vista Home does not have it. At least I don't see it in Disk Manager.

[Antinomy]

Try this
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3858/the-w...b-review/2

[vii]

Try this
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3858/the-w...b-review/2

That's the thing. I don't have this option. I tried on another 2 PCs (Vista Pro and 7 Ult) and the option is there but not on my Vista Home.

[vii]

Antinomy,

I installed Win2008R2 and it gave me an option to convert to GPT partition. Everything looks good now.

Just one more thing I would like to ask you. Can you briefly list the steps to take for such BIOS modification? Or maybe you can point me to a good FAQ/tutorial. I am asking in case if I want to do the same myself next time.

Thank you again.

[Antinomy]

Well, I'm glad you've worked out creating your GPT partition.

As for the mod - yes and no. I can easily explain this modification, it can be done in 3-5 clicks. But - only experience and understanding of how hardware works and is being initialized by BIOS may tell what needs to be modded.

RAID 5 doesn't appear in RAID manager. It can be either the BIOS itself or the manager (which is a stand alone device ROM added to BIOS). Then I remember that Intel's ICH SATA has the following modes - IDE/AHCI/RAID. This means, that the BIOS itself only handles setting the controller in RAID mode - and it's the manager's job to tell which RAID mode exactly.

After this - extract the RAID ROM using MMTool (there is a FAQ about using this utulity on Rebelshaven for example), look inside. It did have strings about RAID5 but only in one place, while RAID 0 and 1 was in two places. Then I get the BIOS from Asus RAID board with the same ICH - as I remember, it was P5K-R. Then I pull RAID ROM out of there and check what's in - RAID5 is mentioned in two places and the version is close enough.

Then I replace the original module with this donor and here you are - a BIOS with a non-cut RAID manager. But every case is different and I can't explain in two words why another mod was done that way and not the other.