Setting up a 3.0 TB

Hi guys.

I bought a new 2.0TB Seagate expansion USB a couple of months back because my Windows XP Pro was giving problems. If you plugged a USB drive in it would be recognised even though the icon is shows in systray.

I decided to format it on Windows 7. If you right-click on the drive in Computer and select format the only option that show is basically NTFS. When I plugged it into Windows XP the icon is shows in systray but it wasn't recognised.

If you open Disk Management it shows the drive is GPT.

How come when I formatted the 3TB that didn't show GPT?

Anyway I sorted that with diskpart even with a few other thing like format it MBR and Windows XP recognises it now.

My new problem is I have a good friend who has said for a while I must get a new external USB drive. I explained my problem and I said stick to 2TB as it won't be recognised on Windows XP.

He bought a 3TB expansion USB because it wasn't much more.

I do the normal NTFS format on Windows 7. I plug it into Windows XP as normal it not recognised because its bigger than 2TB.

I've read all threads on here

Partition or Volume - Create New

Partition or Volume - Extend

Partition or Volume - Shrink

diskpart

I've done the usual many times.

diskpart
list disk
select disk {1}
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs quick

But Disk Management shows

Disk 0 - hard drive C: simple basic NTFS healthy (system, boot, page file, active, crash dump, primary partition)
Disk 1 - 3.0TB USB - simple basic NTFS healthy (active, primary partition)

If shows 60% of Disk 1 746.52GB Unallocated.

I've tried extend volume but that only make another part of the drive Unallocated.
I've tried shrink volume not that I want to shrink it and that makes another part of the drive Unallocated which I deleted that volume.

I know any external drive e.g. 2TB you can't use all 2TB its 1.8 but I would like this 3TB to be 2.5TB.

Any suggestions gratefully appreciated.

I'm really surprize after 86 views that no one has made a comment good or bad of their experience. I'm surprize no one has talked about adding large drives of any size and had had no problems reading the drive. You can get 3, 4, 6 and 8TB drives.

Please complete this tutorial by Golden so members can have a look see.

Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

Are your system UEFI or Bios?

Take a read here. I should explain things a little better.

Hard Drive - GPT or MBR - Windows 7 Help Forums

Note
New PCs are arriving with their hard disks pre-formatted using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) rather than the legacy MBR method.

This tutorial shows you a quick and easy way to determine the file table format.

Some more information.


Related Tutorials

• How to Convert a MBR Disk to a GPT Disk
• How to Convert a GPT Disk to a MBR Disk

--------------------------------
It is a must for a 3.0 drive to be GPT in order for Windows 7 to recognize the complete size of the drive.




Jack

Layback Bear said:

Please complete this tutorial by Golden so members can have a look see.

Disk Management - Post a Screen Capture Image - Windows 7 Help Forums

Are your system UEFI or Bios?

Take a read here. I should explain things a little better.

Hard Drive - GPT or MBR - Windows 7 Help Forums

Some more information.

Related Tutorials

• How to Convert a MBR Disk to a GPT Disk
• How to Convert a GPT Disk to a MBR Disk

--------------------------------
It is a must for a 3.0 drive to be GPT in order for Windows 7 to recognize the complete size of the drive.

Jack

Thank you for your comment Jack.

In Boot - OS Mode Selection it shows UEFI OS. CSM OS. Legacy OS.

UEFI = Windows 7 >
Legacy = All OS.
UEFI & Legacy = All OS.

I've done the normal cmd

diskpart
list disk
select disk {1}
clean
create partition primary
select partition 1
active
format fs=ntfs quick label=3.0TB

I've read all the tutorials on here which are good.

I've searched for Shrink partition, Extend partition on here.

Partition / Extended : Logical Drives

The example shown is only for a small 100GB

Partition or Volume - Extend

The example shown is only for a small 305GB

I've tried that but it only add another disk 1 2048GB. I tried the 2048GB in Windows XP the USB icon shows in the status bar but its still not recognised. Probably because of the 746GB Unallocated.

Thy doesn't Extend use the 746GB Unallocated probably because its 3.0TB 2048GB.

I know that any external USB drive you plug in doesn't show the true size. A 2.0TB drive shows 1.81GB because it uses the extra for the file system and other wasted space.

I want to use this Unallocated Space: 74436 MB else what's the point in having a large drive that can't use at least 80% of its capacity.

When I try to extend the drive as the tutorial shows.

The message says:
Virtual Disk Manager
Extend only the first 2TB are useable on large MBR disks. Cannot create partitions beyond 2TB mark, nor convert to disk to dynamic

This 3.0TB Seagate Expansion Disk the properties show:

Disk: Disk 1
Type: Basic
Status: Online
Partition Style: Master Boot record (MBR)
Capacity: 2861587 MB
Unallocated Space: 74436 MB
Reserve Capacity: 0 MB

Seagate Expansion Desk USB Device
Disk ID: C24E936C
Type: USB
Status: Online
Path: 0
Target: 0
Location Path: UNAVAILABLE
Current Read-only State: No
Hibernation File Disk: No
Crashdump Disk: No
Clustered Disk: No

dsperber said:

Repeat: you cannot use drives larger than 2TB if they are partitioned MBR. They MUST be partitioned GPT if you want to use a drive or partition > 2TB in size.

Also, you cannot use GPT with a 32-bit version of Windows (either XP or 7). You must use a 64-bit version of Windows, i.e. 7 or higher.

Why must you stick with XP? If so, you cannot use GPT.

Time to upgrade to a 64-bit Windows, if you must use drives > 2TB.

I know Windows XP has a 2TB limit but I want to split this 3TB drive into 2 drives which will be 1.4GB each. Every time I split the drive it splits 2048GB. Its the 746GB Unallocated I want to add to the main drive. How do I add 746GB Unallocated to the main drive?

The main reason I stick with Windows XP is because I use Outlook Express 6.0 for may emails. When I do a rebuild I copy the dbx files to a drive and put them back afterward. All my previous emails are still there. I save my contacts to wab file, double click on the file and they all go back to Outlook Express.

I've Goggled Outlook Express for Windows 7 and nothing shows only Microsoft Live which I don't like. Bill Gates stated many years ago that software its compatible with all Windows versions. There must be hundreds of people that sill use Outlook Express.

On Windows XP I also have Office 2003 installed (know it old but it works the why I want it too) when I run Outlook that it will import all emails from Outlook Express. I have to save all info to pst files and copy those to my laptop.

I spoke to my friend over the weekend and he says he has another 3TB drive which was done on an old computer and that works. I said you need to look at Disk Management and see if all the drive is available.

He said he will take it back and exchange it for a 2TB drive. I said hang on for a while to see if I can get it sorted on here.

You could use a gpt loader, which allows use of large disks as data drives. Internal drives only, and you can't boot from it as far as I know.

Edit : seems different now - it used to be free also.

Paragon GPT Loader - Overview