Please help me confirm/correct my understanding. I've done a search, but either I'm not finding anything definitive, or I'm using the wrong search terms.
I'm installing a 4TB internal drive as a secondary (the system boots from a 500GB drive). Can Win7 64bit see/use the entire drive using MBR as long as the partitions are 2TB or less? Or do I have to use GPT in order to see/use the whole drive?
If you will divide the drive into partitions which are no bigger than 2TB, then you can use a 4TB drive. However, you have to use GPT in order to have one big partition for the entire drive. MBR can't create partitions which are bigger than 2TB (actually, 2.2TB).
You have to have UEFI firmware, not BIOS firmware, in order to be able to use GPT. But since UEFI has been around for a while, it is likely that you have it.
64-bit Windows 7 allows you to make a big partition bootable. With 32-bit, if you have UEFI you could have one big partition for the whole drive, but you couldn't boot with it if the boot partition is bigger than 2TB.
Here is some very helpful information:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...rger-than-2-tb
You only need win 7 64 and UEFI BIOS to boot a GPT drive. Under Win 7 (32 or 64) you can boot from a MBR disk and use a GPT drive for storage.
Actually, you can access only up to 2.2TB partition on a non-GPT disk. You won't be able to access the rest of the unallocated space (tried it, failed). You have to use GPT to access all of any drive larger than 2.2TB.
You can boot off any MBR drive, as long as it is smaller than 2.2TB, and use GPT drives for storage at the same time. I'm booting off a 500GB SSD (which recently replaced a 128GB SSD) and my data is on four 4TB GPT drives.
Hi,
Can someone help me? I just bought a new 4 TB Segate Drive. My PC is running Window 7 Professional 64 bit. I tried to follow the instructions in this thread:
External HD 4TB - 2 Partitions To MBR [2TB Each] Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums
to convert it to two 2 TB drives but have got hung up and can't figure out how to proceed from here to accomplish it.
I couldn't see how to delete the partitions using the Mini Tool Partition Wizard and converted the GPT to MBR but the remaining space is unusable and I don't know how to work around this.
What do you want to use the 4tb for? Internal storage? External storage?
If it is an internal drive, do you want to install windows 7 on it?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/...rger-than-2-tb
a capacity beyond 2.2 TB is not addressable by using the MBR partitioning scheme
Support for Disk Drives Beyond 2.2 TeraBytes (TB) and 4K Advanced Format Sectors
Seagate DiscWizard Beyond 3TB - YouTube
Hi SIW2,
I just want to use this drive for external storage. Do I have to convert it to MBR to use it with Windows 7 for this purpose or can I use it in GPT?
SIW2,
Earlier I read this post:
External HD 4TB - 2 Partitions To MBR [2TB Each] Solved - Windows 7 Help Forums
In that, post it says: If the disk is empty (no data). delete all partitions, create 2 new of 2 T, convert to MBR.
I've created the two new partitions but but don't know how to convert them to MBR.
SIW2
This new disk is a Segate 4 TB drive. It's dimensions are 11.7 x 8 x 2.1 cm or ~ 4.6" x 3.14" x .8". Can you tell me what kind of drive this is? Is SSD, or Flash. I don't think its a miniature standard HD.
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