Win 7 showing 746gb for 3tb drive?

[Grownman]

I recently purchased a WD 3TB green internal hardrive for backups. Upon booting into windows, the drive only shows 746gb's.

I've already gone into device manager and updated the Nforce Serial ATA and the bios shows 3000. (I assume that is for the 3tb's?)

I am not trying to install windows on the drive, but just use it as another drive for backup needs.
I have tried to go to disk management and format the drive but it will not allow me.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

_______________________________________
EVGA 780i SLI
Q9550
Primary - WD 1TB Black
Backup - WD 2TB Black
Backup - External WD 2TB elements
*Backup - WD 3TB Green

 

[drdeathx]

Extend the partition?

 

[Grownman]

Extend the partition?

I've tried to extend the volume, but it does not allow it.

 

[Kreij]

Don't you need a UEFI BIOS and a GPT partition to use a 3TB partition?

 

[MadMan007]

You need UEFI to boot off a 2TB+ disk (I think it's technically 2.2TB)

To use 2TB+ disk for storage, it needs to be partitioned as GPT, not MBR. Just select GPT when partitioning in disk management.

 

[Grownman]

You need UEFI to boot off a 2TB+ disk (I think it's technically 2.2TB)

To use 2TB+ disk for storage, it needs to be partitioned as GPT, not MBR. Just select GPT when partitioning in disk management.

Thanks for the clarification. How do I partition it to GPT? I don't even see MBR...

 

[sneekypeet]

disk management has the option when you format it.

 

[Grownman]

Edit: See next post.

Upon right click on the drive -> Format

The only options I am given:

volume label: "New Volume"
file system: NTFS
allocation size: Default
[ ]perform a quick format
[ ]enable file and folder compression

I can't seem to locate GPT.

 

[Grownman]

After deleting the volume, I was able to select GPT; however, it still shows the maximum volume as 764307Mb

 

[95Viper]

Windows and GPT FAQ

Q. What about mixing and matching GPT and MBR disks on the same system?

A.
GPT and MBR disks can be mixed on systems that support GPT, as described earlier. However, you must be aware of the following restrictions:
Systems that support UEFI require that boot partition must reside on a GPT disk. Other hard disks can be either MBR or GPT.
Both MBR and GPT disks can be present in a single dynamic disk group. Volume sets can span both MBR and GPT disks.

Manipulating GPT Disks and Their Contents

Q. How do I create a GPT disk?

A. You can create a GPT disk only on an empty, unpartitioned disk (raw disk or empty MBR disk).
For more information about creating GPT disks, see Using GPT Drives.

You need to remove the partition you have created first.

 

[Grownman]

You need to remove the partition you have created first.

Thanks Viper, I came across that link earlier as well. After covering to GPT, it still only shows a maximum volume of 746gb.

 

[95Viper]

Did you check to see if you got the option to convert to GPT while it is unallocated?
And, then partition...

 

[Grownman]

Attached SS.

Behind shows 746.39 GB Unallocated

I've already rebooted to see if that would do anything, but no luck.

 

[95Viper]

Quote:

Q. What about mixing and matching GPT and MBR disks on the same system?

A.
GPT and MBR disks can be mixed on systems that support GPT, as described earlier. However, you must be aware of the following restrictions:
Systems that support UEFI require that boot partition must reside on a GPT disk. Other hard disks can be either MBR or GPT.
Both MBR and GPT disks can be present in a single dynamic disk group. Volume sets can span both MBR and GPT disks.

You may need to move the boot partition to that drive for it's capacity to be recognized properly. Your boot partition is on C: which is an MBR disk.

You can use EasyBCD to do this. -->EasyBCD download (Just click "download" you don't need to enter any info)
Changing the Boot Partition <-- Info on the EasyBCD WIKI

 

[Grownman]

Hmm, but I am not trying to use it as a boot drive, simply just extra storage. These drives come with a controller/driver to help older mobos recognize the entire drive...


May as well return it and get a 2 TB drive instead... such a fucking nightmare!
Additionally, having an old mobo doesn't help either.

 

[Jetster]

Large drive are a pain. You just need to delete the partition and start over. Has nothing to do with your mb. Use a boot disk like Hirens or active kill

 

[Grownman]

Large drive are a pain. You just need to delete the partition and start over. Has nothing to do with your mb. Use a boot disk like Hirens or active kill

Installed the free version. 746GB of unallocated space.

 

[Jetster]

Ok I was wrong Active Kill will not delete or create the partitions. Get Hiren's. Delete and creat one GPT partition

 

[johnboy]

Has anyone found a solution to this? I have exactly the same issue.

I have installed a Western Digital 3TB HD. When I go into the BIOS the drive is listed as having 3TB of space, but according to Windows 7 disk management the drive space is 746.39 GB.

The drive is unallocated but I have the GPT partition style selected. If I attempt to create new partition the maximum size is 746GB.

I have also tried a couple of third-party partitioning tools and get the same result unfortunately.

 

[micropage7]

what about making partition through windows installer
its kinda confusing

 

[Mussels]

are you guys on the latest service packs for your OS? can you try another machine?

 

[johnboy]

Ok, so I finally got it to work, although I must admit I'm still not entirely sure what the issue was. I did the following:

1). Download and burn Gparted to a CD.
2). Go to Disk Management (right click computer->Manage).
3). Right click the box to the left of the volume and set partition style to GPT.
4). Right click on the volume->create new simple volume.
5). Create a new volume with the maximum size (~740GB).
6). Format the disk volume as NTFS (I set allocation unit size to 4kb, but am not sure whether this was necessary).
7). Put in the Gparted CD and reboot windows.
8). Follow the command line instructions to boot Gparted.
9). Load up the disk tool then select your volume from the dropdown menu in the top-right.
10). I saw the full disk space (3TB) split into a 740GB region allocated and the remainder unallocated.
11). Right click on the allocated region and click Grow / Shrink.
12). Drag the bar at the top so your volume covers the whole 3TB.
13). Click apply.
14). Reboot from Gparted, remove the disk and boot into Windows.
15). The disk was then 3TB in size in Windows.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

How is the drive connected to the computer? I've had problems with computers not being able to consistently see all 3TB of a drive when connected via USB.

Also, it's possible the drive is no good. I would run Data LifeGuard Diagnostics and see what it concludes.

 

[newtekie1]

Yeah, something is not right here. Even if it is formatted as MBR, Disk Management should still see all the space, it will just list the extra space that can't be used due to to MBR as unallocated.

Edit: After some quick googling it seems to be an Intel RST driver issue.
See here: http://www.servethehome.com/fix-746gb-3tb-hard-drive-issue/

Updating Intel RST seems to fix the issue.

 

[johnboy]

I have an AMD processor, so in my case this wasn't the issue.

The drive was connected by SATA.

Other system deets:

System Type: x64-based PC
Processor: AMD Athlon(tm) Dual Core Processor 4450e, 2300 Mhz, 2 Cores(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)
BIOS Version/Date: Phoenix Technologies, LTD 5.17, 09/10/2008
SMBIOS Version: 2.4