Bios upgrade requirement for external 3tb Drive??

Jimmy Johnson

Reputable
Apr 12, 2014
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0
4,520
I have a Dell GX 620 with Win 7 . Im wondering if the barrier that I'm encountering in successfully installing my Seagate 3tb external drive is caused by my bios. The drive does not show up there and in windows no third party software has been able to increase the available space from 371gb to the actual 3tb accommodation. help! please...
 
Solution


Problem solved: here's the scoop....the drive incidentally responded the with the same shrunken 371gb status when connected to other computers Seagate had me run Seatools utility which resulted in a short DST failure. They told me that if that occurs or if a long DSt failure occurs the drive is close to failure. Fortunately I had no data on it yet. The finally resulted in returning the unit to Walmart ( the origin of purchase). So glad I bought the extended warrantee because I had been fighting this problem for two weeks which was the maximum time limit for a store return. Seagates policy was a two week process for replacement. Heres' what I noticed when I installed the new...
Yea needs to be formatted as GPT. ALSO I have had the same issue with a server installing 3TB over USB Docks. I had them all setup and formatted on my PC at my office and then took them over. They only read as like 400-500GB drives. Though it was a limitation of the Dock since it was only suppost to support up to 2TB drives. Well after swapping them out same issue. So i went in, delete the partition, and remade it and BAM all 3TB was there.

Also make sure you have 64 Bit windows otherwise you won't be able to make a partition more then 2Tb without 3rd party software.
 

Jimmy Johnson

Reputable
Apr 12, 2014
12
0
4,520


Problem solved: here's the scoop....the drive incidentally responded the with the same shrunken 371gb status when connected to other computers Seagate had me run Seatools utility which resulted in a short DST failure. They told me that if that occurs or if a long DSt failure occurs the drive is close to failure. Fortunately I had no data on it yet. The finally resulted in returning the unit to Walmart ( the origin of purchase). So glad I bought the extended warrantee because I had been fighting this problem for two weeks which was the maximum time limit for a store return. Seagates policy was a two week process for replacement. Heres' what I noticed when I installed the new replacement:

  • a blue led after connecting and setup
    native software on board for initializing the unit GPT/MBR
    and of course. a fully functional 2.71tb availability.. AMEN!!!!!!
Im so done with this crap because now the format of my failing WD 1tb is not compatible with my Seagate 3tb, so I can't clone the drive to save my precious data between them. Im manually copying the files over to the 3tb and some of the folders are 50 plus Gb taking up to 5 hrs to transfer. while the Wd heats up and drops the process temperamentally.
 
Solution
Yea me i'm not a big fan of seagate. Only reason why i have two drives is 1) They have the hybrid laptop drive which honestly...i saw no difference and 2) because they make the cheaptest 4tb which i use as a backup and is almost never on.

I'm not a fan of buying drives greater than 2TB. They just seem to die faster.

Also if you download the crystal disk info in my signature you can keep an eye on all your hard drives and see if and when they go bad.