Unformatable Unallocated Space

im using windows 7 64 bit

i heard that my mobo needs to support uEFI raher than bios
and i checked and i have the latest firmware update for my board F5

im using windows 7 64 bit

i heard that my mobo needs to support uEFI raher than bios
and i checked and i have the latest firmware update for my board F5

If you use gpt, you will need efi to be able to boot windows from that drive.

mmmm so i have 3 options

1
get a new motherboard with efi

2
split the 2 tb partition and created another partition that i can install windows xp on
and then fix the nightmare that is the mbr so that i can get back into windows 7

last time doing this i found that installing windows xp would install it on the same partition as windows 7 was on
causeing windows xp to bsod when it was loaded

3
by far the easiest but may have issues aswell
use VM Ware and make a virtual machine of windows xp

only question about that is its been 3 years plus since i used it studying cit at otago polytechnic here in new zealand and i cannot remember if you can install drivers on a virtual machine

If your mobo has proper efi support - then you could install win 7 onto a gpt disk - but not xp.

If you want to boot XP from that disk - you will have to use mbr - and will not be able to access past 2tb.

You are better using another HD ( 2tb or less ) so you can install xp and win7 easily onto it - using mbr.

Then use your 3tb drive as storage using gpt on that drive. You will able to access the gpt drive from win7.

The latest version of VMware player is pretty good. I have not tried XP in it but it runs Linux distros very well provided you can enable VT in the BIOS. Virtualbox is another alternative for a virtual machine.

mmmm thinking about it i guess ill shrink the 2 tb partition and create a new one which i can install xp on to
this time it shouldnt try to install xp onto the same partition as windows 7 which it was doing before causing a bsod on booting windows xp yet windows 7 would still boot fine

is there any slowdowns of using wmware like lag or anything and as long as i can install drivers on the virtual machine and theres no lag then i will go with that option

i would get another hard drive and use this drive as a secondary drive but i would also have to update motherboards if you look up my motherboard the gigabyte ga_880gma_ud2h you will see its a micro atx good board but

the sata connectors are all up facing and not near the edge of the board you will notice the update the ud3h has the connecters near the edge of the board and that they are 90 degree facing not 180 or straight up in the middle of the board

problem is my sapphire hd5850 is so big it covers up all but two sata conenctors

and one is the hard drive in question and the other is used for my blu ray writer so i guess that ill just one day update again

right well ive made a new partition out of the 2 terabyte partition that i could use

so now i have a 1.3 tb partition and a 700 gig partition for xp which ive labeled E drive

so hopefully xp will go better this time and no bsods as it wont be installing xp onto a windows 7 partition

Could you lift the card up enough to install 90 degree connectors into the ports and then reseat your card? May help in the future if you can.

yea ive tried that i think ill just get another board

thanks for all the help guys

i also spliting the part of the 3tb hard drive i could use and tried installing xp on it however it would still try to overwrite windows 7 so fail

i really hope amd wake up and get propper efi support going until that time i guess ill just stick with windows 7

sad cause i did wana play scarface without the graphics going mental like it does in windows 7

and starcraft well i found a solution for it but will have to test it as it normally gave me bsods on windows 7 after a while of play but ati have newer drivers now so it may of been that or something else i duno will have to test it like nuts

anyways thanks for all the help again have learnt alot about 3 terabyte drives and windows 7 / mbr

Is it xp with sp1 or greater?

Before my time - but I think if you don't , you need to install xp in a partition on the first 130 gb or so of the drive.

I might suggest, if you are going to buy a new AMD board, Buy one of the new boards with an AM3+ socket. They are backward compatible with AM3 Chips, but will allow you to upgrade to the AM3+ chips in the future if you so desire. Although I don't own one I also understand they have the UEFI bios.

I think this answers most of your questions
http://www.hitachigst.com/tech/tech...0235119/$file/Deskstar_3TB_FAQ_finalwebv2.pdf