Thunderbolt drives / Windows 2008 Server

C

Cinemagic

Junior Member
System: Mac OSX 10.8.2, Paragon v10 NTSF for Mac, Parallels 9.0.23062, VM Windows 2008 Server SP2, Areca ARC-8050 Thunderbolt RAID with WD drives.

Problem: I cannot format, partition or change the drive letter of the Areca RAID drives in Windows 2008 Server.

Steps taken: I have formatted the RAID with Mac Disk Utilities as an NTSF drive. In Parallels, I have selected the external device to be associated with Windows 2008. The drive appears in Windows 2008 Disk Management, however the only function not grayed out is Format. When I try to Format, I get the error message "The system cannot find the file specified." While I have formatted it in Mac as NTSF, it shows up in Windows 2008 as a FAT32 file in an EFI System Partition. If I format it in a Mac OS format, the drive itself is seen by Windows 2008, but again with the EFI System Partition. Since it is formatted with an unrecognizable volume, I thought I could partition and format it. No such luck.

So, how can I format this drive to NTSF? I have no use with it on the Mac side, only Windows. The Thunderbolt drivers are working, otherwise, the device would not be seen at all. It must be a limitation with Parallels and the VM environment.
 
You are using a Boot Camp type Hard Disk but your hard disk's MBR has not been setup as a hybrid MBR so only the EFI partition is visible.

Try these commands to see what I mean (change disk1 to the device representing the RAID):

diskutil list
sudo gpt -r show -l disk1
sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

The DiskDescriptor.xml file inside the .hdd file that points to the RAID shows what parts of the disk are writable. The MBR, GPT and backup GPT are protected by default. There's no option to make them not protected.

You could try formatting the RAID in Mac OS X with a MBR partition scheme and a FAT32 partition. Then maybe Windows will let you format it as NTFS. I haven't tried that though.
 
Thanks, but I've tried the above suggestions. Even if I format the drives as NTSF with Mac Disk Utilities, in the Windows 2008 Server VM, it is seen as FAT32. But in Mac Disk Utilities, it's seen as NTSF. I have not had problems with single drives, but the RAID seems to be a problem, even though it shouldn't be.
 
ClarkB said:
Thanks, but I've tried the above suggestions. Even if I format the drives as NTSF with Mac Disk Utilities, in the Windows 2008 Server VM, it is seen as FAT32. But in Mac Disk Utilities, it's seen as NTSF. I have not had problems with single drives, but the RAID seems to be a problem, even though it shouldn't be.
Click to expand...

Going to need more information. Please post the results of the following commands (replace disk1 with the number for your raid disk).

diskutil list
sudo gpt -r show -l disk1
sudo fdisk /dev/disk1

Post a screen shot of Windows 2008 Disk Management.

If you're using the Boot Camp Hard Disk type, then post a copy of the DiskDescriptor.xml file.
 
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