3tb drive only allowing me to format 2tb

Mightyashy · 21 Nov 2013 at 23:35

Yet another question...

Got 2 3tb drives, plugged one in and in disk management it only allows me to format a maximum of 2tb. My board is a gigabyte z87x-oc and im using windows 7.

Got them in sata ports 2/3.

Do I need to do anything specific to allow it to use the full size of the drive?

Thanks,
ash

wazza300 · 21 Nov 2013 at 23:50

I think you have to pick gpt partition,not 100%sure tho

kefan77 · 21 Nov 2013 at 23:51

>2TB = change from MBR to GPT

Mightyashy · 22 Nov 2013 at 00:24

thanks

Mightyashy · 23 Nov 2013 at 11:01

one did it no probs, the other says incorrect function and isnt initialised. made a few odd noises too...

do I have a dead hard drive?

Mightyashy · 25 Nov 2013 at 13:15

anyone?

PoliticallyCorrect · 28 Nov 2013 at 20:08

perhaps it's because you're formatting it as FAT32. But as previously pointed out you won't be able to use MBR either.

Here are my recommendations:

GPT Partition Layout + 1 Partition containing a NTFS Volume ( Windows )
GPT Partition Layout + 1 Partition containing a HFS+ Volume ( Mac )

darael · 29 Nov 2013 at 16:34

My motherboard doesn't have an UEFI and I was planning on buying a 3TB harddrive and partitioning - something along the lines of 150GB for Windows, the remainder for data. Is this possible with my BIOS, or only with UEFI?

bledd · 29 Nov 2013 at 17:53

You need a UEFI bios to boot from a GPT partition.

Best way around this problem, is buy a 120gb SSD, use that for Windows, use the 3TB as a data drive!