Seagate says 3TB drive requires 64-bit OS

MattRainier · 21 May 2010

My Seagate works just fine - like others have said, it will not die. My WD's did, tho'.

Yeah, I guess this just goes to show that 64-bit computing is the computing of the future - at least the near future.

Zen00 · 21 May 2010

Seagate had a bad run of 2tb drives come out which decimated their reputation. Beyond that, their drives are reliable.

Talking about 64-bit computing, I wonder if this is the death-neel for 32-bit.

ufp624 · 21 May 2010

all my drives are seagate. i have 3. one is a hundred years old

. if it dies now, i guess its had a good life.

smarteyeball · 21 May 2010

Zen00 said:

Seagate had a bad run of 2tb drives come out which decimated their reputation. Beyond that, their drives are reliable.

7200.11 - one number that destroyed a reputation.

Talking about 64-bit computing, I wonder if this is the death-neel for 32-bit.

It may not be the death knell, but it's certainly playing it's part.

pparks1 · 21 May 2010

Zen00 said:

Seagate had a bad run of 2tb drives come out which decimated their reputation. Beyond that, their drives are reliable.

They had the 7200.11 at the 1.5TB variety that had tons of firmware issues.

WindowsStar · 21 May 2010

Dixon Butz said:

I would never touch any Seagate drives. Even if they were free.

Customer Reviews Of Seagate Barracuda LP ST32000542AS 2TB 5900 RPM 32MB Cache SATA 3.0Gb/s 3.5" Hard Drive -Bare Drive

You are right on this type of drive. I would never buy it this drive it is a cheap low end drive. 5900RPM as well.

We have had great luck with the enterprise drives 7200RPM an 1,200,000 MTF. We have had drives run for years without issue.

Adrian · 22 May 2010

Lee said:

If you are an XP user this drive is not for you; it will not work in XP. Even if you break it down into several drives (partitions) it still will not work. You will need Windows 7 or Vista 64 bit. Of course this information can change before the final release date.

You are forgetting that XP 64 Bit Professional is still around although support is now an issue.

bazcor · 23 May 2010

It's apparently not just the OS that can be a problem but 99% of current BIOS's will not accept a drive over 2.1tb, they are looking to motherboards that load subsitute BIOS routines with the OS. This rules out most current mobo's.

pokemoncatdog · 03 Jun 2011

3tb on XP, YES YOU CAN!

How To Use any and all (not external, sorry) 3TB Hard Drives On Windows XP

An alternative is an advanced partitioning scheme like GUID Partition Table (GPT) which can support 3TB volumes. The problem however is that GPT is not supported by Windows XP.

Paragon however came up with a solution. They basically create a specially signed driver to make Windows XP compatible with the GPT partitioning scheme. With this in place, Windows XP users can utilize the full storage of 3TB hard drives.

IT will work, it just can not be the boot drive or an external (USB, FireWire, etc.) Also RAID may not work

Seagate launches XP-supporting 3TB drive â€¢ The Register

Seagate aims to sell its 3TB whopper to them because the DiscWizard software makes the drive bootable and comes at no charge. You install the drive on your system, download the software from www.seagate.com/beyond-2TB, run the software and use it to configure the drive with a virtual device driver that makes it bootable from non-UEFI motherboards and by Windows XP. Seagate says there is no equivalent software available from the other 3TB drive suppliers, Hitachi GST and Western Digital. Their equivalent drives cannot be booted by non-UEFI motherboards, and only Hitachi GST provides XP support.

This is only for Seagate drives, but you can boot form the drive (External may still not work, sorry.).