3TB WD Hard Drive Partition Issue

Discussion in 'PC Hardware' started by TinyZz, Jul 10, 2014.

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  1. TinyZz

    TinyZz MDL Novice

    Jul 9, 2014
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    #1 TinyZz, Jul 10, 2014
    Hi guys,
    I learned this the hard way. I went and bought a NAS and few 3TB WD Green hard drives. After testing them I realized green hard drives often go into sleep mode when idle, so i went and bought real NAS drives instead.

    I've tried to use the green hard drives on Windows 7, but Win7 only see 750GB and the other 2TB was missing.

    I tried GParted and Fdisk on it, but in the Disk Management still shows 750GB. However, when I put them back into the NAS I can see 3TB.

    Any ideas what I should do next?

    ---
    TinyZz
     
  2. Tito

    Tito Super Mod / Adviser
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    Nov 30, 2009
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    #2 Tito, Jul 10, 2014
    You need to partition the HDD in GPT style & install Windows in UEFI mode.
     
  3. murphy78

    murphy78 MDL DISM Enthusiast

    Nov 18, 2012
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    #3 murphy78, Jul 10, 2014
    Last edited by a moderator: Apr 20, 2017
    admin prompt
    Code:
    diskpart
list disk
select disk 1 (or whatever matches the disk(s) of your description)
clean
convert gpt
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick label="some label here"
assign
exit
     
  4. Flipp3r

    Flipp3r MDL Expert

    Feb 11, 2009
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    #4 Flipp3r, Jul 10, 2014
    Yes use Murphy's diskpart commands on your disks.
    If you are using these 3TB as Data drives then your Windows does NOT need to be in UEFI mode - Only if your installing your OS...
     
  5. plavec

    plavec MDL Novice

    Aug 20, 2012
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    #5 plavec, Jul 15, 2014
    So if I understand correctly - when the UEFI mode is not enabled, the only limitation of 3TB disks is that it cannot be a system disk?
     
  6. Mr.X

    Mr.X MDL Guru

    Jul 14, 2013
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    #6 Mr.X, Jul 15, 2014
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2014
    No. It can still be a system disk but due is MBR formatted then only 2TB are seen, the rest disk capacity remains unseen.

    The 2-TB barrier is the result of this 32-bit limitation. Because the maximum number that can be represented by using 32-bits is 4,294,967,295, this translates to 2.199 TB of capacity by using 512-byte sectors (approximately 2.2 TB). Therefore, a capacity beyond 2.2 TB is not addressable by using the MBR partitioning scheme.