915GMM chip can not support GPT format disk

JohnZhang · 30. März 2013

All,

I install OMV3 on a IDE DOM 8GB, it works, the hardware are
Mother board: brand: MSI type: MS9625 915GM speed star, the chips are 915GM+ICH6M,
CPU: PM720, dothan 1.6GHZ,2M cache. single core
RAM: 1GB DDRII 533
after I finished the install, I installed a 1TB Hitachi Disk and use web interface to wipe it and format it into ext4 with GPT. then I reboot it. the system hang on BIOS self detect process and can not move to next process. I thought it was hardware issue, I replaced disk wire but did not solve it, but when I try to remove the GPT and use other software to format the disk into Ext3, then add it into OMV, reboot it again, there is no issue happened. so I have below two questions:

1,Could I use Non-GPT disk in normal status? whether it is possible to missed the data if I use the non-GPT disk.
2,If the old chip can not support the new GPT, could we set GPT function as a alternate function?

Thanks for OMV team's hard work so I could build this kind of system easily!

SerErris · 2. April 2013

GPT is not required in any way by OMV.

IF you want to get rid of any partitioning (that a BIOS could be aware of) simply use LVM to put the whole disk as a physical volume. That means you will not create any partition table on it. Then after adding the disk to a volume group, create a logical volume out of that and put the filesystem on it.

That will remove the need to use any partitioning scheme for the data disks, therefore you will be good with your BIOS.

On the other hand, not sure if a BIOS upgrade would help? ... and also I believe that the Mainboard is pretty old ... and maybe draws an massive amount of power with this P4 CPU.

Pretty impressive specs ... for the old time
http://www.intel.com/content/w…mobile-chipset-915gm.html

The Chipset was introduced in 2004 ... wow that beast still does work?

JohnZhang · 2. April 2013

SerErris,

Thank you very much for your reply!
Yeah, the mother board is quite old,and the BIOS is stop to update in manufactory web site. but it could works and power saving. so I used it as my home file server. I think the performance of it is enough for me.

Now I format the hard disk on my windows computer by other format software, and it works.
I will follow your advise when I try to purches another hard disk.

SerErris · 2. April 2013

I would simply do it now and remove the partition before putting data on it. Also if you want to put another disk in, you need LVM anyhow to be able to have one single space to work with. Otherwise you will have two independent mountpoints and cannot create a single coherent space out of it.

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