3Ware 9650SE Raid controller issues.

[Stutch]

Hello,

First off, let me say that I am not a total newbie when it comes to Linux, but I am also not as proficient in this OS as I am in Windows. Secondly I can safely say that I have spent limitless hours scouring the forums here looking for an answer to my issue. 

Here is my core system configuration:
•   MSI K9A2 Platinum motherboard
•   AMD Phenom 9650 2.3GHz Socket AM2+ 95W Quad-Core
•   4Gigs Ram
•   3Ware 9650SE-16ML Raid controller
•   Western Digital Caviar 1TB (8 total in a raid 5 array)
•   Broadcom Gig Nic
•   NORCO RPC-4020 4U Rack Mount Case
•   600 watt power supply

My issue seems centered around the 3ware Raid controller.  When using the DVD to install LinuxMCE, the system can see sda1 as a 5.4TB drive, but when the installer gets to the point where you are supposed to choose an drive to install too, you get this message:
HDIO_Drive_CMD (Identify) Failed: Invalid Argument
HDIO_Drive_CMD (Identify) Failed: Invalid Argument
/dev/sda1
It will allow you to choose the unidentified disk, and the install proceeds.  However, after the dvd is copied to the hard drive and the bios probes for devices,  you get a repeating message:
Unknown Partition table signature
If I remove the RAID controller and hook a drive directly to the motherboard, it works fine.   I really need to get this raid controller working.  According to the forums, the 6.22 kernel has the 3ware card driver, so I should be good to go.  Any suggestions?

[Stutch]

I have an update.

It seems that if you wait a REALLY long time after getting the Unknown Partition table signature error the installation will finish.  The issue that I see now is that I can't seem to create a mountable partition on the rest of the 6 TB drive.

Is there a limit to the physical size of the boot drive that is causing me this issue?

According to this site: http://www.cyberciti.biz/howto/question/static/maximum-partition-size.php I should be able to serve up a 6TB drive to the OS without issue right?

[Stutch]

I have yet another update.

The issue has something to do with maximum allowed disk size.  I am not sure if it is an issue with kubutu or with my motherboards bios, however, when I set this raid controller up to auto carve luns out of my 6 terabyte drive, I can install Kubuntu.  Now I am following the advice shown below on how to partition those drives so that they can be best utilized for storing media.

I will update this post as things progress.

From "blog gelusi: Linux Tuning Guide" (http://gelusi.blogspot.com/2008/02/linux-tuning-guide.html)

 1. Filesystem
 Block sizes
 
 For filesystems dedicated to serving fairly large files, adopting a larger than default 1024 byte block size may yield significant
 performance gains.
 
 Recent transactions on the linux kernel list suggest that setting the block sizein an ext2 file system to 4096 instead of the
 default 1024 will result in less file fragmentation, faster fsck's, faster deletes and faster raw read speed, due to the reduced
 number of seeks.
 
 Unfortunately this cannot be changed on the fly. Only a reformat will make this so. The command to format a file system with 4096
 byte blocks is:
 
mke2fs -b 4096 /dev/whatever
 
 Additionally, on any filesystems except those used for logfiles, the default of 5% reserved for root use is excessive for large
 file systems, so the command to make the filesystem can be augmented to
 
 mke2fs -b 4096 -m 1 /dev/whatever to set the reserved fraction to 1 percent.
Then if you want a journaling (ext3) filesystem:

mke2fs -b 4096 -m 1 -j /dev/whatever