How to use all of HD capacity

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dhartsfield

Honorable
Oct 26, 2013
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10,510
I have a Hp Pavillon Computer running Vista Service Pak 2. I just install a WD Green Caviar 3TB internal HD. The BIOS recongnizes 3 TB but the OS only sees 746.39 GB. The drive has been initialized as a GPT drive. I have an external WD 3TB drive connected to a USB port that works fine when connected. Since the WD info I read before buying said it would work with Vista SP2 on a 32 bit system, if i used it as a non-boot drive and formated as GPT, I'm stumped. Help please.
 
Solution
lonewolf7
You can try this method :

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...
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popatim

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Dec 2, 2009
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Use disk management to view the drive. Does it show 2 or more partitions?
Win7-32 works with 3tb gpt storage drives and you said your bios sees all 3tb so I suspect this is a formatting issue. If you see more that 1 partition, delete them all and start fresh. Just be aware that deleting them deletes their contents too but your drive sounds like its empty anyways.
 
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lonewolf7

lonewolf7

Splendid
May 6, 2013
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You can try this method :

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.

This link is for Seagate drive but might help you :

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/Desktop-HDD-Desktop-SSHD/3TB-drive-shows-as-only-having-745-6GB/td-p/144539

And another link : http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/287288-32-seagate-hard-drive-showing-746gb
 
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Solution
D

dhartsfield

Honorable
Oct 26, 2013
4
0
10,510
lonewolf7, Thanks. Gparted worked. Looked a little different, but intutive programing works. Tried to format in Vista last night but it got hung up at 26%, so I'm trying again this morning. Hopefully, it will power thru. Thanks again.
 
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