Windows Server 2012 UEFI RAID5 Installation Problem

• Monday, June 04, 2012 8:53 PM

   

   
  

  0

  I recently downloaded Windows Server 2012 RC and am trying to install it on a UEFI RAID5 boot drive that is composed of 5 x 2 Tb drives (8 Tb available).

  AMD FX-8150 CPU

  MSI 970A-G46 Motherboard

  Using the exact same hardware I was able to install WHS 2011 on a single RAID5 UEFI boot drive. During the installation process I am prompted for the MSI RAID driver and once that is provided I see a single 8 Tb drive.  The installation of WHS 2011 then completed normally.

  I have not actually installed Windows Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1, but the initial installation screens look correct to me.  (I do not see the drive problem mentioned below.)  So I believe this should work.

  I was under the impression that Windows Server 2012 might require UEFI to boot?  From looking at the ISO provided by Microsoft I saw BOOTX64.EFI in the EFI boot directory.

  But when I try to install the Datacenter Core version I get to the point of choosing a drive and even without providing the MSI RAID driver I see all 5 of my 2 Tb drives listed individually.  This does not happen with either WHS 2011 or Hyper-V 2008.  (In those cases I initially don't see any drives, but after installing the MSI RAID driver I see a single 8 Tb drive.)

  I tried using Hyper-V 2008 R2 SP1 to initialize the RAID5 drive and it setup the 3 partitions.  (I believe they were System, MSR, and Data?)  Then I stopped the installation and went back to trying to install Windows Sever 2012 RC.

  This time I still saw all 5 drives listed (even before providing the MSI RAID driver), but the first drive showed up as 8 Tb in size (rather than 2 Tb as it had before).  Even though this did not look right I tried to install anyway, but it failed.

  When installing WHS 2011 I found I had to boot to the MSI EFI shell and from there I loaded an xxxx.EFI file in order to complete the WHS 2011 installation.  I tried renaming BOOTX64.EFI on the Windows Server 2012 installation and booted the system to the MSI EFI shell, but none of the various xxxx.EFI loaders I had (from several versions of Windows) worked correctly.  Each attempt at installation failed.

  In searching for a solution I found that you can enter Shift-F10 during the installation process and get a DOS prompt.  From there I started DISKPART.  I am not 100% sure of this, but I believe when I installed WHS 2011 that DISKPART showed a single GPT volume that was 8 Tb in size?  When I use DISKPART during the Windows Server 2012 RC installation I see all five 2 Tb drives individually listed.  (Which matches what the GUI installer was showing me.)

  At this point I am not certain if the problem is with the MSI UEFI BIOS?  Or a problem with Windows Server 2012 RC?  I'm guessing that the motherboard is not correctly identifying the RAID5 drive to Windows and that is why I see all 5 individual 2 Tb drives during the installation process (rather than being prompted to load a RAID driver)?

  Can anyone help me resolve my particular problem?  Or have you been able to get a similar UEFI boot to work with Windows Server 2012 RC (using a drive that is larger than 2.2 Tb in size)?  If so I'd like to know what CPU and motherboard you were using.

  Thanks for any help you can provide.

  
  

  • Edited by Theokrat Monday, June 04, 2012 8:57 PM
  •  
  • Reply
  • Quote