3 tb hdd question

[laylow]

Hello all.

I recently received a 3tb hitachi 3.5 internal hdd as a gift. When trying to format and start using etc, I can only go up to two tbs in windows vista and in 7 (I know, limitations!)

My question is: If I just leave this 1 tb blank and unformatted and hit 1,99tb storage, would the disk make use of the extra 1tb unallocated space for sorting/selecting/indexing or I would still need to keep the drive at a 70-80% capacity to perform these functions?

If the extra 1tb does not help, what can I do to enable it properly and start using it as a second partition?


Another, offtopic question, do you think that dual boot is any use or is it just unnecessarily complicating things?
Switching between vista/7...
My use is only for gaming music and movies.

 

[Hawkeye22]

If this isn't going to be a boot drive, you can format the full 3Tb using GPT instead of MBR. Just be aware that some OS's can't read a GPT disk.

[strike]You can't make use of unallocated space. You could put a partition there and format it as a 1T partition and assign it a drive letter.[/strike]

I wouldn't dual boot just for gaming. It just adds complexity when something does go wrong.

 

[WyomingKnott]

You can't make use of unallocated space. You could put a partition there and format it as a 1T partition and assign it a drive letter.

Hawkeye

Enlighten me. I thought that GPT was a partitioning schema, and that disks with MBR partitioning can't access the data above 2.2 TiB no matter what. Have you done what you described?

 

[Hawkeye22]

Hawkeye

Enlighten me. I thought that GPT was a partitioning schema, and that disks with MBR partitioning can't access the data above 2.2 TiB no matter what. Have you done what you described?

No, you are correct. That's what I get for posting before my first cup of coffee. My apologies for the misinformation to the OP.

 

[laylow]

So essentially, I need to reformat the drive to gpt (since I would not allow me to go over 2 tbs I assume it is MBR partitioned)
and then get two partitions working both in GPT. Their sum of space would be 3TB.

OR

I could get the second partition in GPT now as it doesn't matter whether the MBR-threshold-hitting partition at 2tbs?

Confused hitachi owner is confused...

 

[Hawkeye22]

So essentially, I need to reformat the drive to gpt (since I would not allow me to go over 2 tbs I assume it is MBR partitioned)
and then get two partitions working both in GPT. Their sum of space would be 3TB.

As above, or...

GPT allows for partitions over 2Tb. If you want, you can delete the partition you created and create one large 3Tb GPT partition.

 

[laylow]

Thank you guys, so I need to reformat to a GPT partition!

 

[Hawkeye22]

Correct. Also, here is a little more info on GPT.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/hardware/gg463525