2Uneek13

Honorable
Nov 17, 2012
2
0
10,510
I installed a 3 TB hard drive in my computer and I selected GPT doing this time. I went to computer management then disk management and my hard drive is only reading 746,39 GB and not 3 TB, why is this? Are there anything I can do to correct this issue if so what are the steps?
 
If you have a motherboard that is not brand new then I would update the bios and at the MB manufacturers web page I would look for a bios update that would have a fix for the 3 tb hard drive.
When you went to disk management was there any other hard drives listed that could be the other portion of the 3 tb.
 

John_VanKirk

Distinguished
Hi there,

Check the make and model # or your MB, and also check if the firmware is BIOS or EFI. When did you purchase it?

Also go to disk management (right click my computer, manage, computer management and click on disk management in the lower left area.)

If you can, please upload a screenshot of disk management dialog box for us to check on your next post. Also right click on the disk volume (should read Disk 1 or 2) of this new HDD), and click properties. Then on the Volume tab, it will give you important data about this drive. What are the listings for the Disk, Type, Partition style, and capacity and unallocated space?

That should help a lot in determining how the MB and OS see this large drive.
 

2Uneek13

Honorable
Nov 17, 2012
2
0
10,510




I have HP Pavilion Media Center M8400f Desktop PC with a MCP61PM-HM (Nettle) motherboard with BIOS firmware. Purchase the computer in 2008 and the hard drive three weeks ago (WDC WD30 EZRS-00J99B0 SCSI Disk Device Properties). Disk one is the hard drive that is not reading as a 3TB. Instead it’s only reading as a 746, 39 GB. The Disk, Type, Partition style, and capacity and unallocated space? The disk 1, type is basic, partition style is healthy and primary partition. The capacity and unallocated space are 746,39 GB NTFS.


















 

weaselman

Honorable
Oct 27, 2012
1,146
0
11,360
It is clear without doubt, that the bios of the mother board cannot see the new HD because in 2008 a 3TB HD would not of existed, there for the size supported would not exist.
The maximum drive size the bios can support is 750GB.
The first thing you should of done was to have gone in the bios to see if it psychically read the drive in TB as stated on the drive, that would of told you the bios could not make sense of the drive over a given size. It would then to correct the problem, require a bios update of the firmware on the mother board to read the larger drive size so it could format the whole 3 TB of space.

 

John_VanKirk

Distinguished
Hi again,

Here is an article posted on WD's community site related to the 3TB WD HDD's being recognized as a 746.39GB drive. Talks about updating the Intel RST driver as a solution to the problem. Also a post regarding it on the Microsoft community web site.

http://community.wdc.com/t5/Desktop-Portable-Drives/AV-GP-3TB-shows-800Gb-in-BIOS/td-p/451598

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-hardware/trying-to-install-and-use-a-3tb-hard-drive-but/d9258ff0-d50a-4346-bf04-a168f21b7225?msgId=ac5b5d1f-2061-42a9-919a-c61133af6575

These are related to Intel chips, but since your MB is AMD, as Fzabkar said, updating your SATA or RAID driver may resolve the problem.
He is also right on the money when the larger HDD's are used as secondary drives, as compared to the primary boot drive. They can be set up as a Basic Drive, with a GPT partition style, and address greater than 2.2 TB of space. Didn't mention, but are you running 32 bit or 64 bit Vista on the computer?

Also, here is a good article that helps to explain the problems, frustrations, and solutions of the newer > 2.2 TB drives. Worth a look

http://www.pcworld.com/article/235088/everything_you_need_to_know_about_3TB_hard_drives.html

And if none of the suggestions seem to work, you could always (as another choice) partition the 3 TB drive on a separate computer, into 2 or several < 2.2TB partitions to use as separate drive letters.