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My 3TB Hard Drive is showing up as 1.9tb.

Tags:
  • Storage
  • Hard Drives
  • Windows 8
  • USB
Last response: in Storage
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October 8, 2014 9:26:03 PM

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/6qr6K8

My current build, put together today.

After installing Windows 8.1 Pro off my USB with a key, I found out that 746gb was missing off my 3TB hard drive.

I'm not sure what to do, i've tried "Merging" partitions and everything, would love some help fast.

Also, if I had to format, would I be able to reinstall Windows 8.1 Pro with the same key and USB? Don't want to go through the trouble of rebuying and redownloading.

More about : 3tb hard drive showing 9tb

October 8, 2014 9:37:24 PM

NTFS formatted HDDs cannot excede 2TB of storage. Once you surpass the 2TB mark you need to format the disk as GPT and reinstall.
As long as your motherboard is "newer" 2010+ it sould have UEFI support. UEFI is needed to boot on a GPT formatted drive.
If your mobo does not have UEFI support youll have to settle for 750GB of unusable space.
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October 8, 2014 9:46:56 PM

diabedo said:
NTFS formatted HDDs cannot excede 2TB of storage. Once you surpass the 2TB mark you need to format the disk as GPT and reinstall.
As long as your motherboard is "newer" 2010+ it sould have UEFI support. UEFI is needed to boot on a GPT formatted drive.
If your mobo does not have UEFI support youll have to settle for 750GB of unusable space.


What's the process of formatting the drive to GPT?

And it does, from what I know, support UEFI. The MB is a pretty new model as well, is there a way I can check? It's an ASUS BIOS.
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October 8, 2014 10:02:45 PM

EpicAbcdude said:
diabedo said:
NTFS formatted HDDs cannot excede 2TB of storage. Once you surpass the 2TB mark you need to format the disk as GPT and reinstall.
As long as your motherboard is "newer" 2010+ it sould have UEFI support. UEFI is needed to boot on a GPT formatted drive.
If your mobo does not have UEFI support youll have to settle for 750GB of unusable space.


What's the process of formatting the drive to GPT?

And it does, from what I know, support UEFI. The MB is a pretty new model as well, is there a way I can check? It's an ASUS BIOS.

If its a newer ASUS mobo then I would be surprised if it didn't have UEFI support, if I had the model then i could check for you.

Pop in you bootable USB It should allow you to delete the partition and install Windows on the new 3TB drive in GPT format.
But if that isn't allowable I would take that drive and connect it to another Windows machine. Do a full format on the drive, then reallocate the entire (approx) 2700GB space. If the space is larger then 1.9TB then it will only let you format in GPT. Then pop it back in the original machine and try the install again.

But if it still doesnt work. You have 2 options
1: Get a 2TB or smaller HDD for your OS (A SSD would be a perfect solution). and use the full 3TB for other storage (I have a 3TB drive just for gaming so similar to what im doing).
2: Settle for the unusable 750+GB of space.
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