New WD 3TB hard drive only showing as 1.99TB Huh?

nightrider1470 · 22 Feb 2012 at 17:23

Just installed this drive, thought they sent me 2Tb by mistake at first but notice a lot of my drive is reporting unallocated?

Any advice on how to get it working?

Top drive

Tealc · 22 Feb 2012 at 17:27

Is it something to do with needing to use GPT (and a motherboard that supports it) and the fact that MBR can only go up to 2.1 Terabytes?

BluSky · 22 Feb 2012 at 17:28

Thats because the maximum partition size for a basic NTFS partition is 2TB. You will need to go into windows disk management and make a second partition for the other 1TB. The other option would be to configure the disk as a GPT disk (as opposed to the standard MBR layout). Then you could have a full 3TB partition. There is plenty of info about this on google if you give it a search

. Try searching for something like "ntfs 2tb partition limit windows"

nightrider1470 · 22 Feb 2012 at 17:31

Yer would like the hole 3TB to show on the drive. I will have a search

kona786 · 22 Feb 2012 at 17:42

what mobo do you have?

nightrider1470 · 22 Feb 2012 at 17:59

Gigabyte GA-Z68MA

nightrider1470 · 22 Feb 2012 at 18:02

http://www.gigabyte.com/products/product-page.aspx?pid=3855#bios

nightmare99 · 22 Feb 2012 at 19:07

Right click where it says Disk 0 Basic and select Convert to GPT that should sort it.

Socrates470BC · 22 Feb 2012 at 20:44

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molhopicante · 22 Feb 2012 at 21:00

I have a Motherboard Asus P5Q-E.

If i buy a 3TB HDD and make 2 partitions (2TB + 1TB), i don't need to use GPT?

In that case, MBR works and i don't need to do anything more? Only partitioning as usual?

Thanks.

PistolPete · 22 Feb 2012 at 21:17

molhopicante said:
I have a Motherboard Asus P5Q-E.

If i buy a 3TB HDD and make 2 partitions (2TB + 1TB), i don't need to use GPT?

In that case, MBR works and i don't need to do anything more? Only partitioning as usual?

Thanks.

The point the OP was making was that they wanted a single partition

nightrider1470 · 22 Feb 2012 at 21:59

So whats the deal then. I need to go this GPT root or update my motherboard?

Someone said above right click where it says 0 and then select GPT as simple as that? am not home to test

BluSky · 22 Feb 2012 at 22:24

molhopicante said:
I have a Motherboard Asus P5Q-E.

If i buy a 3TB HDD and make 2 partitions (2TB + 1TB), i don't need to use GPT?

In that case, MBR works and i don't need to do anything more? Only partitioning as usual?

Thanks.

To answer your query... Yes, absolutely right

nightrider1470 · 22 Feb 2012 at 22:27

thanks

DaGooN · 23 Feb 2012 at 01:07

have you not tried gigabyte 3tb unlocker?

http://www.gigabyte.com/MicroSite/276/3tb.html

GIGABYTE 3TB+ Unlock optimizes HDD storage space by allowing the user to create a virtual drive with space that exceeds 2048GB, the maximum amount of storage recognized by 32bit versions of operating systems such as Windows XP. The virtual drives are limited to 2048GB, and the user can create up to 128 partitions, as long as there is additional unallocated space on the HDD. 3TB+ Unlock supports both GPT (GUID Partition Table) and MBR (Master Boot Record) partition styles, however with MBR the number of partitions are limited to 8.

3TB+ unlock
(Note) Support Intel X79/Z68/X58/P67/H67 series and AMD 900/800 series MB.
(Note) Please install 3TB+ Unlock Preinstall driver first before running 3TB+ Unlock utility.

OS:Windows XP 32bit,Windows XP 64bit,Windows Vista 32bit,Windows Vista 64bit,Windows 7 32bit,Windows 7 64bit

Surveyor · 23 Feb 2012 at 01:15

molhopicante said:
I have a Motherboard Asus P5Q-E.

If i buy a 3TB HDD and make 2 partitions (2TB + 1TB), i don't need to use GPT?

In that case, MBR works and i don't need to do anything more? Only partitioning as usual?

Thanks.

BluSky said:
To answer your query... Yes, absolutely right

Not exactly because the HDD will only show as ~2.73TB (technically TiB) in Windows.

See here for the difference between the SI unit of measurement used by HDD manufacturers and the binary system used by Windows.

nightmare99 · 23 Feb 2012 at 12:45

have you not tried gigabyte 3tb unlocker?

He does not need this and does not have to do anything with his motherboard as he is using it as a storage drive.

Just convert it to GPT if you want a single partition the full size of the disk.

kona786 · 23 Feb 2012 at 14:56

nightmare99 said:
He does not need this and does not have to do anything with his motherboard as he is using it as a storage drive.

Just convert it to GPT if you want a single partition the full size of the disk.

do you need to have a 64bit OS for this?

BluSky · 23 Feb 2012 at 18:08

kona786 said:
do you need to have a 64bit OS for this?

No 64bit affects the amount of RAM the computer can utilise but it has no bearing at all on the maximum size of Hard Disk that you can use.

TAC4U · 23 Feb 2012 at 20:24

BluSky said:
No 64bit affects the amount of RAM the computer can utilise but it has no bearing at all on the maximum size of Hard Disk that you can use.

I think the confusion arises because you have to have a 64bit operating system if you want to use a 3TB as your boot-drive, which is something a lot of people aren't aware of. I had some issues when I first installed a 3TB drive, as less than 2TB was showing (that wasn't the limit of the partition - the rest was literally missing), but changing from RAID to AHCI fixed it - took me a few Google searches to figure it out. It's a shame that there are any issues at all, as they should have been worked out years before it became an issue.