New RAID0 - Intel Matrix Storage Console sees it, Windows doesn't

[Asterra]

I seem to have stumbled upon a problem that is unique to me. My situation:

Got a Gigabyte EX58-UD5. Been running WinXP Pro off one drive, Win7 off another. Decided to add a 3TB RAID0 to handle raw video mule work. It's not going smoothly.

I basically have two options: Use Gigabyte's onboard JMB322 controller, or put the drives on the ICH10R ports and use the Intel Matrix Storage drivers. Since the universal opinion of the JMB322 is that it's for emergencies only, I went with the latter.

Putting this driver on an existing Windows installation is a unique problem. If you try installing it when RAID has not been enabled, the driver claims you "do not meet the minimum requirements." If you turn on RAID for the SATA ports, Windows will not boot (without the driver). I was fortunately able to solve this by temporarily booting my Windows drive off one of the JM322 ports (ha ha.. for emergencies only).

So I go into Gigabyte's RAID configuration menu, set up my drives as RAID0, exit, and boot WinXP which now has that Intel driver. That works. I load the Intel Matrix Storage Console and confirm that my RAID0 is there and in perfect working order. So far so good.

There is no 3TB drive in My Computer. There is no 3TB drive in Disk Management. Windows is not seeing it.

If I use the Intel Matrix Storage Console to separate the RAID0 into two drives, Windows finds both. I can even then set up a "dynamic" (striped) disk which seems to be a sort of native RAID0 emulation, but I find this "solution" highly dubious. No doubt there are severe performance issues with such an option.

So that's my issue. The RAID0 is there. It works. Windows does not see it. And just to be 100% clear, there is no sign of the drive in My Computer and no sign of the drive in Disk Management. No "mystery drives" that I accidentally overlooked.

Just thought I'd make a post before the hair pulling commences.

[BJ_M]

Because the operating system (winXP) cannot address disk space beyond the 2 Terabyte limit -there is no way around this with a raid setup unless you use a nas


http://www.ghacks.net/2010/11/04/how-to-use-3tb-hard-drives-on-windows-xp/

[Asterra]

I was aware of the 2TB limit but I figured this was a separate issue to the topic of simply recognizing the RAID0 in the first place. Ie, I figured WinXP would see the drive and then give me the option of creating partitions on it, up to 2TB in size. After all, if it can't even see an oversized drive, how is one expected to partition it to XP's limitations at all?

Also, the Dynamic Disk option created a 3TB drive with no complaints. Even I found this curious...