I present to you the 3tb mystery drive! I need help :(

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Serb7

Prominent
Jun 6, 2017
3
0
510
Okay! So... here's the drive and some backstory
This drive was working fine, I couldn't mount the full 3tb in one fat32 partition (or something like that i don't remember) so I made a 700 and something gb partition and the rest was unallocated, and it was totally fine like that for a long time...
I just picked it up, and went to use it and well... we'll get to that.

Here's the drive!
20170606_161255.jpg


Here's the drive mounted on windows 7.
w7.png

As you can see It only gives me 746gb, and lists the drive in diskpart as a 746gb drive.
I've not tried to partition the 746gb on windows 7, but I would imagine it would turn out a lot like it does on windows 10. Access denied error, or just doesn't work.

Here's the drive mounted on windows 10.
w10.png

Again, I can't partition this space, it gives me access denied. I can't Initialize it either, again access denied.

Here's the drive mounted on Ubuntu Linux 16.04 LTS
Linux.png

Gparted in linux returns an I/O error and also lists the drive as 2tb
And gdisk -l had no effect


I'm really confused as to what's going on here and how to fix it....

 
Solution
C
The drive needs to be formatted with GPT (GUID partition table) format not MBR format.

Master boot record (MBR) disks use the standard BIOS partition table. GUID partition table (GPT) disks use unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI). One advantage of GPT disks is that you can have more than four partitions on each disk. GPT is also required for disks larger than 2 terabytes.

You also need a modern computer with up to date drivers and late model operating system. If using 3TB drive as a boot drive you also need a UEFI BIOS.
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JaredDM

JaredDM

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Jul 8, 2015
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It could very well be a hardware issue with the drive. Though, appearing as 746Gb is strange indeed. Normally when they fail they'll appear as 3.86Gb.

Regardless, getting read errors in Linux is a bad sign. If you don't need data off of the drive, I'd say it's best to just scrap it and replace. If you need the data, it might be wise to seek out professional data recovery.
 
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Serb7

Prominent
Jun 6, 2017
3
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510

Nah I don't need the data off, I would just like to be able to use the 3tb drive itself :p
It was working fine, and then literally not long after it just simply wasn't, I'm really not sure what changed.
 
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Serb7

Prominent
Jun 6, 2017
3
0
510
I'm going to cry hahahaha
I took the drive and mounted it back onto windows after installing ubuntu
It mounted as a 2.78TB Volume *I thought 'Victory!'*
I loaded up diskpart, listed the disks, shows up as a 746gb Volume *uh oh*
I went ahead and formatted the drive
and I literally, LITERALLY, watched a 2.77TB ext4 volume turn into 746gb of unallocated space! BAHAHAHAH WTF
I'm on the right track though, I think what I'll do is install linux again, mount it in linux and then format it that way idk what's up with this drive hahahaha
 
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Calvin7

Titan
Feb 19, 2013
11,725
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76,490
The drive needs to be formatted with GPT (GUID partition table) format not MBR format.

Master boot record (MBR) disks use the standard BIOS partition table. GUID partition table (GPT) disks use unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI). One advantage of GPT disks is that you can have more than four partitions on each disk. GPT is also required for disks larger than 2 terabytes.

You also need a modern computer with up to date drivers and late model operating system. If using 3TB drive as a boot drive you also need a UEFI BIOS.
 
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