I'm running Windows 8 Pro using an MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard.  This motherboard has an AMD SB850 chipset.

 

I am using the latest BIOS and AMD RAID drivers.  I have an SSD as the boot drive as MBR and am using two Seagate 3 Tb drives ST3000DM001 configured for RAID1 as GPT.

 

I found that I am unable to create a VHDX or VHD on the RAID1 drive. When I use the Disk Manager to try and create the VHDX I get the following error message.

 

Virtual Disk Manager

 

The sector size of the physical disk on which the virtual disk resides is not supported.

 

 

The problem seems to be that the sector size, bytes per sector in FSUTIL display, is 1024 rather than the older 512?

 

 

Several webpages seem to mention that this problem was fixed with Hyper-V Server 2012 and by implication this should also be fixed with Windows 8?

 

 

One article that mentioned the newer Advanced Format drives is this one.

 

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510009

 

 

I am able to use the RAID1 with Windows 8 for all other files, but not when trying to create a VHDX or VHD.

 

 

I found that if I took these same two Seagate 3 Tb drives and installed them on an Intel DQ77MK motherboard then I ended up with 512 sector size and was able to create a VHD on the 3 Tb RAID1 drive.

 

 

I tried these same two Seagate 3 Tb drives as RAID1 on another AMD motherboard, MSI A55M-P33 with an AMD A55 chipset, and this had the same problem as my original MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard.

 

 

Is this a design problem with the AMD RAID driver, i.e., not allowing me to get 512 sector size, and that's the reason I cannot get this to work?  It seems odd that I can use these same physical drives as RAID1 on an Intel motherboard, but not on two AMD motherboards.

 

 

Thanks for any assistance you can provide.

 

 

P.S.  I am not running Hyper-V on my Windows 8 Pro machine.  I would not think that should be required to get the Disk Manager to create a VHDX

 

 

Here are several FSUTIL displays.

 

 

MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard configured as 3 Tb GPT RAID1 running Windows 8 Pro.

 

NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0x2a965c67965c3613

NTFS Version   :                  3.1

LFS Version    :                  2.0

Number Sectors :                  0x00000000ae9d73ff

Total Clusters :                  0x000000002ba75cff

Free Clusters  :                  0x000000002ba655b3

Total Reserved :                  0x00000000000027c0

Bytes Per Sector  :               1024

Bytes Per Physical Sector :       4096

Bytes Per Cluster :               4096

Bytes Per FileRecord Segment    : 1024

Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0

Mft Valid Data Length :           0x0000000000040000

Mft Start Lcn  :                  0x00000000000c0000

Mft2 Start Lcn :                  0x0000000000000002

Mft Zone Start :                  0x00000000000c0000

Mft Zone End   :                  0x00000000000cc820

Resource Manager Identifier :     EFD89220-727B-11E2-BEDC-6C626DAB51D9

 

 

MSI 890GXM-G65 motherboard configured as individual 3 Tb GPT drives running Windows 8 Pro.

 

NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0xf855002654ffe4f2

NTFS Version   :                  3.1

LFS Version    :                  2.0

Number Sectors :                  0x000000015d4c97ff

Total Clusters :                  0x000000002ba992ff

Free Clusters  :                  0x000000002ba88bae

Total Reserved :                  0x0000000000000180

Bytes Per Sector  :               512

Bytes Per Physical Sector :       4096

Bytes Per Cluster :               4096

Bytes Per FileRecord Segment    : 1024

Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0

Mft Valid Data Length :           0x0000000000040000

Mft Start Lcn  :                  0x00000000000c0000

Mft2 Start Lcn :                  0x0000000000000002

Mft Zone Start :                  0x00000000000c0000

Mft Zone End   :                  0x00000000000cc820

Resource Manager Identifier :     0257C210-7286-11E2-BEDD-6C626DAB51D9

 

 

 

Intel DQ77MK motherboard as 3 Tb GPT RAID1 using Windows Hyper-V Server 2012.

 

NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0xa2f0f186f0f160c9

Version :                         3.1

Number Sectors :                  0x000000015d4bdfff

Total Clusters :                  0x000000002ba97bff

Free Clusters  :                  0x000000002ba8ceec

Total Reserved :                  0x0000000000000000

Bytes Per Sector  :               512

Bytes Per Cluster :               4096

Bytes Per FileRecord Segment    : 1024

Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0

Mft Valid Data Length :           0x0000000000040000

Mft Start Lcn  :                  0x00000000000c0000

Mft2 Start Lcn :                  0x0000000000000002

Mft Zone Start :                  0x00000000000c0040

Mft Zone End   :                  0x00000000000cc840

RM Identifier:        EEBBFC62-733E-11E2-A885-E840F20B8293

 

 

MSI A55M-P33 motherboard configured as 3 Tb GPT RAID1 running Windows 7 x64 SP1.

 

NTFS Volume Serial Number :       0xf22093142092df43

Version :                         3.1

Number Sectors :                  0x00000000ae9d73ff

Total Clusters :                  0x0000000015d3ae7f

Free Clusters  :                  0x0000000015d36dcb

Total Reserved :                  0x0000000000000000

Bytes Per Sector  :               1024

Bytes Per Cluster :               8192

Bytes Per FileRecord Segment    : 1024

Clusters Per FileRecord Segment : 0

Mft Valid Data Length :           0x0000000000040000

Mft Start Lcn  :                  0x0000000000060000

Mft2 Start Lcn :                  0x0000000000000001

Mft Zone Start :                  0x0000000000060000

Mft Zone End   :                  0x0000000000066420

RM Identifier:        9589CA5C-7352-11E2-A1FB-DF07AB068339