Windows 7 - Hitachi Deskstar 7k3000 3tb drive.....

Hello,

I am hoping to get some answers or information in regards to this hard drive.

I am just recently bought a new system and while installing Windows 7 Ultimate x64, I noticed that the hard drive was only using 2tb's of space. After some checking I found out the window's will only be able to use 2tb's unless I use the Hitachi's disk management tool to open the additional 1tb.

Now the problem I am having is that the tool notes I need to convert the drive from MBR Disk to GPT Disk. I was found several ways of doing this but none give me any information on how to do this if the drive itself is the primary boot drive for the PC.

Unfortunately I don't have another hard drive or PC to throw the new one in just for the time being (I am assuming that this is one way to resolve this).

Basically it doesn't let me convert the hard drive to GPT unless it is empty (again, I am assuming the OS needs to be gone as well).

Any help or suggestions in this situation would be awesome.

I've never used a drive that large, but it leads to issues:

Above 2TB

Short version: drives larger than 2TB must use GPT. Windows 7 can only boot from a GPT drive if you have a 64 bit version (as you do), and your motherboard uses uEFI rather than a traditional BIOS.

Some 3TB drives I've seen sold with controller cards that may allow these limitations to be worked around, but I've not used one.

I don't know how this affects the Windows 7 installation process.

If you have an Asus motherboard, you may wish to try their Disk Unlocker:

ASUS Motherboard Disk Unlocker - Unearth the Missing Space