Large Parition San failing on Windows Server 2003 Enterprise R2

I've setup a 4.7TB RAID5 SAN communicating via a fiber channel card on a
server running Windows Server 2003 R2. It was a slow to communicate but I
figured that was the PCI-X card running on a PCI bus. I created a single
4.7TB partition using GPK partition system but as I was formatting it with
NTFS, the drive disppeared from the server with an error about memory
locations.

Connecting to the SAN i've discovered that both the HOST LUN and the
Logical Volume have been deleted. I'm trying to figure out if this is an
limitation of Server 2003, the FC card or a combination of both.

I am eventually moving o a 2008 Enterprise box with a PCI-E FC Card once the
Hardware arrives, but I'm trying to see if this will work for us at all
before this.

Any idea's?

Hello Cameron,

Thank you for posting here.

As you mentioned, the drive disappeared from the server with an error about
memory locations, could you please describe the error message word by word?
If possible, please take a screenshot of the error message and send to


Basically speaking, NTFS system has a limitation on the volume size with
2TB if the operation system is non-64-Bit Edition (Itanium) based operation
system. If you want to use more than 2TB as a single logical unit volume,
please ensure that you use Microsoft Windows Server 2003, Enterprise
Edition for Itanium-based Systems or Microsoft Windows Server 2003,
Datacenter Edition for Itanium-Based Systems as the host system.

Please check the following reference for more detailed information.

Reviewing Storage Limits
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/l...68(WS.10).aspx

Frequently asked questions about the GUID Partitioning Table disk
architecture
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx/kb/302873

Hope it helps

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support

Hello camerons,

I want to see if the information provided was helpful. Please keep us
posted on your progress and let us know if you have any additional
questions or concerns.

We are looking forward to your response.

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support

The issue ended up being with a configuration in the san's firmware. All is
resolved.

Thanks.
"David Shen [MSFT]" <v-> wrote in message
newsHvZUWS%...
> Hello camerons,
>
> I want to see if the information provided was helpful. Please keep us
> posted on your progress and let us know if you have any additional
> questions or concerns.
>
> We are looking forward to your response.
>
> David Shen
> Microsoft Online Technical Support
>

Hi Cameron,

Thanks for your feedback.

Gald to hear that the issue has been resolved.

David Shen
Microsoft Online Technical Support