Repairing Windows 7 Ultimate x32

[Telsum]

Hi all,

Yesss, I know (before you even start), x32........
However here is the situation I find myself in.
A machine had a bad system drive (with another partition on the drive) which was slowly getting worse, (Windows Explorer would shut down etc...).
I have managed to create backups of the partitions on said drive as good as they were (using Acronis True Image 2014). I have restored said backups to a new drive (a 3tb drive replacing a 2tb drive) and well amazingly enough the restored system still boots.

Now here is my issue. Chkdsk reports there are issues to fix (not unexpected, I sort of expected to have to do some remedial work), so OK, chkdsk C: /f followed by a reboot. Straight back into windows, chkdsk did not run.
Lets check safe mode, that works fine.
OK, lets force the issue and boot off Windows DVD and get a command prompt, run things from there.
The DVD boots up, and go down the repair path, it can't find the drive Windows is installed on.
During my trial and errors this weekend I inadvertantly restored the system drive back to another (blank) 2tb drive. Windows DVD could find that, however since I had 2 drives both the exact same make/model I was still unsure if the one I had just removed to make way for the 3tb was actually the faulty drive, so persisted forward with trying to get it on the 3tb (Even though I might not be able to use the 3tb to it's fullest advantage initially).

Soooo, given that, that probably means I have a driver problem where the windows 7 Ultimate SP1 CD I have doesn't know how to talk to my new 3tb drive is how I'm reading it. I've tried the Gigabyte site, tried their downloads for the SATA driver, Tried backing up the current drivers using Double Driver and inserting them, tried a repair install (Upgrade), I'm truely at a loss.

Any help you can provide would be appriciated.
(Specs on the system in question are in my profile or just here
Motherboard : Gigabyte 3 series P67A-UD3-B3
3TB main Drive (WD30EXRX)
2x 2TB Second (ST2000DL003)
Thanks,
Tel

 

[Computer0304]

You are using GPT on them, right? MBR only allowes up to 2tb

 

[Telsum]

Nup, MBR.
From what I've managed to figure out is Win 7 x32 will only allow GPT drives as data drives, not boot drives.

 

[Computer0304]

The reason why you need GPT for your 3tb is because you will only be able to use 2tb of the drive.

 

[Computer0304]

And Windows could boot from a GPT drive.

 

[Telsum]

Thanks for your reply.
Everything I've going on the new is only X64 will boot from a GPT Drive, and yes I know the limitation, however I'm just wanting to tidy this up using either a repair install or even sfc.

Currently chkdsk does not run on bootup (when asked to), And booting from a Win 7 x32 + SP1 DVD does not even see the installation. This is whats confusing me, the machine boots fine, if put on a 2 gig hard drive Win 7 DVD sees the install, so yes ultimately I will head down that path. (2 gig boot, 3 gig Data), but for now why I sanity check I took out the right drive via chkdsk running for a couple of days I thought I'd tidy up this install and take a nice clean image.