HP DL380 Gen8 GPT / MBR problem

[MJIT]

Hello all,

a customer of us has the following problem / situation

1. HP DL 380 with 8 drives, RAID 5, 1 Array, 1 logical volume maximum size
2. Partition divided into 2 (3) volumes : 1 TB system, 1 TB data, no 2 TB not adressed because of MBR partition style

Normally we would use a tool to convert this into GPT style, but afaik this is not possible as HP servers do not support UEFI  / boot from GPT. Is this correct?

Do you see any possibilities to use these not addressed 2 TB?

Thanks for any help, Many regards, Marcus

[Torsten.]

IIRC windows can do GPT beginning from vista/2003 for non boot drives.

[MJIT]

Yes, thanks for that. Problem is that the whole disk is MBR, please see attached picture.

[Torsten.]

Now I see ...

It was maybe a bad decision to create a single logical drive, better create multiple logical drives with SSA, so windows can see each logical drive as a individual disk. Such non-boot data disk can use GPT, so you would need a logical small drive for boot and a large drive for data.

[MJIT]

Ok, so that means we have no chance to get around the problem without reinstalling the whole system?

[Torsten.]

best would be to backup/restore.

However, if your controller supports it, you can shrink the array (logical drive) and create a new drive in the remaining space.

[UsmanAkram-HS]

HP DL380e Gen8 not support the UEFI mode, you can find the option in HP Gen 9.
we can say that UEFI boot mode support more than 2 TB storage and Legacy mode support UP to 2 TB, so the solution is below:
For Example:
1. if you have storage 10TB, so create the two raid ( one for window and 2nd for storage )
2. when you choose the partition for windows so make sure there is no any extra partition without these raid.
3. install the window in window raid partition
4. complete the startup setup
5. so when you go to Disk management so there you will see the 2 disk online
one is Raid for storage
second is raid for windows
6. so delete the partition from the disk management of the storage RAID.
7. right click on Disk online > convert to GPT

NOTE:
its only done when there is no any Partition allocate or system reserved space. and i am sure it ll work because it was tested by my hand after spend days.
for more details you can email me: usman@hmea.com