[Hard Drives] Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD problems, please help!

[Mixolydian]

Hello everybody,

I just received my Seagate Barracuda 3TB HDD in the mail today, and installed it into my existing PC. I went into disk management and noticed it was around 2TB only, so I did some research and downloaded Seagate Disc Wizard to initialize the full disk in GPT, now I have the full 2.7- TB, and formated it into a simple volume. So now here's my problem... I have tried to transfer files to the new 3TB drive, and files transfer very slowly. I've had on a few occasions the HDD actually disconnect, and no longer appears in my computer or disk management. I've had to restart my computer, and re initialize, and reformat the drive (I've done this about 4 times already). So needless to say I'm getting very frustrated, and I can't find anything online that is helpful. Most places give me the steps i've already taken, and say it should work. However, my HDD is clearly not functioning properly. Also, the 3TB HDD doesn't show up on Intel RST. My mobo is an ASRock z77 Extreme 4, with an i5-3570k CPU. Someone please help!!!

Thanks!!!

 

[nullifier]

Very interesting (and like you said annoying). Inside of your BIOS what is your interface setting (IDE, AHCI, RAID)? I've heard of people having issues when the interface is set to IDE or RAID and not AHCI, but that is still a long shot.

Also, have you looked into a firmware update for the drive or a BIOS update for the board? In version 2.0 for your board there is an update to the RAID ROM, but honestly I don't think that will resolve your issue and as I'm sure you are aware a BIOS update is always a last resort if the board is otherwise working fine for you.

I'll see if I can help find a more concrete set of steps for a solution.

 

[nullifier]

PS. Here is another useful thread where people were experiencing the same thing with a WD drive. See if you can find a solution in there that works for you.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/288558-32-green-internal-disappears

 

[dingo07]

It's definitely a Windows compatibility issue with GPT

read this one first...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463524.aspx

then this one...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463525.aspx

----

here's a quote from this link - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408

Known Issues/Limitations

As the transition to single-disk capacity greater than 2TB has occurred fairly recently, Microsoft has conducted an internal investigation as to Windows’ support for these large disks. The below are a list of issues which have been discovered thus far, and are applicable to all versions of Windows up to and including Windows 7 with Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1:



Incorrect Storage Driver Handling of Single-Disk Capacity Greater than 2TB

Microsoft has discovered that certain storage drivers do not fully support single-disk capacities greater than 2TB. The behavior of some drivers may include:

- Overflow of numerical capacity beyond 2TB, resulting in only able to address the remainder of the capacity beyond 2TB. For example, with a 3TB disk, the available capacity may be 1TB.

- Truncation of capacity beyond 2TB, resulting in a maximum of 2TB of addressable space. For example, with a 3TB disk, the available capacity may be 2TB.

- Storage device is not properly detected, and does not show up either in Device Manager or Disk Management.

Many storage controller manufacturers have updated drivers with support for capacities greater than 2TB available for download. Contact your storage controller manufacturer or OEM to determine support for single-disk capacities greater than 2TB, and if there are any available downloads to provide support

 

[Mixolydian]

Very interesting (and like you said annoying). Inside of your BIOS what is your interface setting (IDE, AHCI, RAID)? I've heard of people having issues when the interface is set to IDE or RAID and not AHCI, but that is still a long shot.

Also, have you looked into a firmware update for the drive or a BIOS update for the board? In version 2.0 for your board there is an update to the RAID ROM, but honestly I don't think that will resolve your issue and as I'm sure you are aware a BIOS update is always a last resort if the board is otherwise working fine for you.

I'll see if I can help find a more concrete set of steps for a solution.

Interface is running AHCI, i don't think that firmware is an issue, as it's detected and I am able to partition the drive fine, but maybe that's just me being naive?? Please let me know if you think of anything, thanks for your help!

 

[Mixolydian]

It's definitely a Windows compatibility issue with GPT

read this one first...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463524.aspx

then this one...
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/gg463525.aspx

----

here's a quote from this link - http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408

Known Issues/Limitations

As the transition to single-disk capacity greater than 2TB has occurred fairly recently, Microsoft has conducted an internal investigation as to Windows’ support for these large disks. The below are a list of issues which have been discovered thus far, and are applicable to all versions of Windows up to and including Windows 7 with Service Pack 1, and Windows Server 2008 R2 with Service Pack 1:



Incorrect Storage Driver Handling of Single-Disk Capacity Greater than 2TB

Microsoft has discovered that certain storage drivers do not fully support single-disk capacities greater than 2TB. The behavior of some drivers may include:

- Overflow of numerical capacity beyond 2TB, resulting in only able to address the remainder of the capacity beyond 2TB. For example, with a 3TB disk, the available capacity may be 1TB.

- Truncation of capacity beyond 2TB, resulting in a maximum of 2TB of addressable space. For example, with a 3TB disk, the available capacity may be 2TB.

- Storage device is not properly detected, and does not show up either in Device Manager or Disk Management.

Many storage controller manufacturers have updated drivers with support for capacities greater than 2TB available for download. Contact your storage controller manufacturer or OEM to determine support for single-disk capacities greater than 2TB, and if there are any available downloads to provide support

Thanks for the info, I read everything and tried to understand to the best of my ability (still kind of new on technical side of PC's). From what i've gathered, is it because I'm not booting from my 3TB HDD??? I don't think that really makes sense, considering that I have my 1TB HDD already set as my boot drive with my OS already on it. This is really getting frustrating, and I'm kind of running out of patience with this damn thing. I'm debating returning it and exchanging it for a 2TB HDD instead, or perhaps two 1TB HDD's. Unless of course I can figure this out, I'm just running out of options here. Any thoughts?

 

[McgheeL]

I had issues with the same drive as well. I had to install the latest Intel RST Driver for it to work correctly.

 

[nullifier]

This is also for my own curiosity as well, did you try disabling power management to the drive as shown here?:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/295/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xMzQ1ODY5NzQ2L3NpZC90WXlGbnk0bA%3D%3D

That was a suggestion from the other link I provided and some had said that it appeared resolve the issue. That is the power management was shutting off the drive when it was idle and it wouldn't turn back on until the system was restarted.

Hopefully that's of some use.

 

[Mixolydian]

I had issues with the same drive as well. I had to install the latest Intel RST Driver for it to work correctly.

Hmm, this sounds like something I haven't done yet. Is there any way you could link me the latest driver? I've look on the intel website and I have no idea which one to download. Or at least point me in the right direction, thanks!!!

 

[Mixolydian]

This is also for my own curiosity as well, did you try disabling power management to the drive as shown here?:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/295/related/1/session/L2F2LzEvdGltZS8xMzQ1ODY5NzQ2L3NpZC90WXlGbnk0bA%3D%3D

That was a suggestion from the other link I provided and some had said that it appeared resolve the issue. That is the power management was shutting off the drive when it was idle and it wouldn't turn back on until the system was restarted.

Hopefully that's of some use.

I opened up my power management and indeed it was shutting the hard disk off after 20 minutes. I changed it to never, and now i'm going to see what happens, thanks for the suggestions!!

 

[Mixolydian]

Hey everyone,

Thanks for all the suggestions. This has been way too frustrating for me to want to continue trying, so I just filled out an RMA form for Newegg. I'm going to be getting a refund on this hard drive and just buy a 2TB instead (or two 1TB if I can find a better deal).

Thanks!

 

[Mixolydian]

Best answer selected by mixolydian.