3TB Western Digital green showing as only 746GB in disk management?

Question

I've just purchased a new hard drive (3TB Western Digital Green) with the intention of transferring everything from my hard drive that has sector issues and is causing BSODs.

The problem is, the new hard drive is showing as only 746GB. The computer is an old Dell Vostro 430 i7 and I couldn't find any relevant information about it in the BIOS, however disk management will not let me use the full disk when I try to create a partition.

I've also tried creating it as a GPT drive but that only gives me an extra couple of GB, way off the 3TB advertised. I've looked online and this usually fixes it, other problems are to do with the enclosure etc but this is just an internal drive connected via SATA.

Thanks

Solution 1

Okay, so I'm not sure which of these two fixed it, or whether it was a combination of both, but in the end I updated my BIOS and at the same time downloaded and installed the Intel Rapid Storage Technology (Intel RST) RAID Driver and it worked!

I also had to clean the disk and then set it to GPT again, but it's now showing as the full 2.72TB! :)

Hope this helps anyone else looking at the question.

Solution 2

Almost certainly the problem is that your BIOS does not support disc drives above 2TB. WD's web-site should have a patch to extend the supported disc size.

Note that there may be compatibility problems if you ever move the drive to another machine which already supports the larger drives.

Solution 3

This problem is resolved in my 10 years old HP desktop (4 cores, Windows 7 - 32 bits), exactly with your kind of drive: 3TB Western Digital Green.

• I added the solution to this blog: Post Anything Here.

In a nutshell you need 2 things to do:

• to install the Intel RAID driver (free).
• to use a good tool for extending the partition to the maximum size, like AOMEI Partition Assistant (freeware).

Cheers!

PS1: After all is setup property, you can uninstall both tools mentioned above.

PS2: If you have any conflict between the new 2TB or 3TB disk and the old DVD-ROM then disconnect the DVD, and get an external one (my case).

Comments

[Nick]

Thank you AFH... that's a shame as I was hoping to transfer this to a new PC if and when I get one! :( I'm just wondering which driver I should get though? Here's the downloads page and none look particularly useful: support.wdc.com/product/download.asp?groupid=608&lang=en

[AFH]

I've done this with a Hitachi 3TB drive, but not a WD, so I cannot advise you in detail. There won't necessarily be a compatibility problem: my words of caution were based on my experience of previous BIOS extenders for lower capacities (I've not tried moving the Hitachi yet). The problem and possible solutions are well described at pcworld.com/article/235088/….

[AFH]

Are you asking because your Win7 is 32-bit? If so, then you will probably find yourself wanting to go to 64-bit after a hardware upgrade. In which case I would suggest keeping your system files on your current disc and install a patch to address 3TB, and using it as an auxiliary drive, keeping your system files on your current drive. You could also split the drive into a 500GB partition, for a future 64-bit OS, and the remainder as a large storage area for your current and future OS. Incidentally, the 746GB is the remainder when the top bit is lost off the storage (3*10^12/2^30%2048).

[Nick]

Thank you for the reply - I'm currently on 64bit Windows 7, not 32bit so I don't think that's the problem.

[AFH]

As far as I can see after chasing around, you can use a 3TB drive if you format it as GPT, but you won't be able to boot off it until you upgrade to a motherboard with an EFI BIOS. So you can use it as an auxiliary drive at present and as a system drive later on. If you don't like this idea, then you're right: exchanging for a 2TB drive is your best option. (For the record, my Hitachi 3TB works fine as an auxiliary GPT drive on XP after installing Hitachi's patch.)

[Nick]

Thank you AFH, in the end I went with the BIOS upgrades and updated raid drivers and it worked :)

[AFH]

Glad you sorted it.