3 TB HDD Showing up as 746 GB

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gt2012

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Nov 18, 2013
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I bought a new 3 TB WD SATA HDD and am trying to format it using a BlacX HDD dock connected to the eSATA port of my laptop. But when I view the new drive in DIsk Management console (Win7 - 64bit), it appears as 746 GB.

How can I get the full capacity of my new drive to be recognized?
 
Solution
RealBeast
You need to format it as a GPT drive, not an MBR type as they are limited to 2.2TB. I would attach it to your computer internal SATA connector, then open an elevated command prompt window (right click run as admin) and then use diskpart to clean the drive with these commands:

diskpart
list disk
select disk n (where n is the 3TB WD drive -- very important not to pick the wrong drive)
clean

Now the drive will be unallocated and you can go back into disk management and initialize it as a GPT drive.

As Phillip advises you may not be able to use it in that external dock, but you will find out when you have properly formatted it and can attach it to the dock.
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Phillip Corcoran

Phillip Corcoran

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Sep 7, 2013
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The most likely cause is that all docks and enclosures have a drive capacity limit, if you exceed that limit the drive capacity is wrongly reported. You need a dock or enclosure which supports 3TB drives. This is usually quoted in the specifications on the manufacturer's website.

I don't know which BlackX model you have, but those I've looked at only support drives up to 2TB
 
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RealBeast

RealBeast

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Sep 13, 2010
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You need to format it as a GPT drive, not an MBR type as they are limited to 2.2TB. I would attach it to your computer internal SATA connector, then open an elevated command prompt window (right click run as admin) and then use diskpart to clean the drive with these commands:

diskpart
list disk
select disk n (where n is the 3TB WD drive -- very important not to pick the wrong drive)
clean

Now the drive will be unallocated and you can go back into disk management and initialize it as a GPT drive.

As Phillip advises you may not be able to use it in that external dock, but you will find out when you have properly formatted it and can attach it to the dock.
 
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Solution
G

gt2012

Honorable
Nov 18, 2013
2
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10,510
Thanks to both of you for your help. It turned out to be a bit easier than any of us thought. I took the BlacX out of the equation and connected the drive to my laptop via a very basic USB to SATA connector. The drive appeared under Disk Management, at which point I was able to follow the steps under How to convert an MBR disk to GPT found at the MS link below. I clicked on Convert to GPT Disk and presto, changeo, it was done. I placed it back into my BlacX dock and I'm now able to see all 2.7 TB without any issue.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408

It's "possible" that I could have gone through the same step to Convert to GPT while in the BlacX dock, but unfortunately it's too late to test it out.

Thanks again for your support!
 
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