Question about disk management for 3TB drive in Windows 7

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peppergomez

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I just built a new system and put 5 old hard drives from my other system into it. Two drives were in external drives, and one is a 3TB.

Windows 7 recognizes the drive in the Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management but not in Windows- the drive doesn't appear and isn't accessible as with my other drives. Also, within Disk Management, windows says the that the disk has all of its storage space free (2794.39GB), which isn't the case- the disk is pretty full.

From what little I've read online, it looks like Windows has difficulty recognizing 3TB drives, andt hat 2TB is the limit for NTFS volumes. I read that Windows can recognize GUID Partition Table (GPT) disks of 3TB and that initializing the disk as that would work. I was suspicious of initiliazing, but decided to see what would happen. Initializing the drive as a GPT drive within Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management took about a second, so the disk now reads as Unallocated. But I still don't have the options I need to make it active in Windows (assign driver letter and name, Mark partition as active, Open, Explore, etc.).

The options I have are: New Simple Volume, Properties, and Help (two other properties are greyed out- New Striped Volume, and New Spanned Volume).

I don't want to proceed any further because I'm unsure what I'm doing. I don't think the data was deleted b/c the process of initializing the drive as a GPT drive happened instantly.

Can any folks offer suggestions on the best way to configure this drive within Windows so it will be recognized?

Thanks.
 
It's not recognizable in Windows because there's no volume set up on it and it hasn't been formatted yet. 2TB is not the limit for NTFS volumes, it's the limit for MBR. Anything more, and you need GPT, which from what you've said, you already have.

If the space on the disk is showing up as unallocated, then your data is pretty much gone. If you don't have it backed up, then you'll need a program like GetDataBack to recover it. After you have that taken care of, you'll need to go into Disk Management and use the option "New Simple Volume", then format and assign a drive letter. Then, you'll be able to see it Windows.
 
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the meaning of "formatted" b/c the disk is full of data and had been recognized in Windows when it was in an external hard drive case. I think it was a WD My Book. So it was formatted (if I'm using the term correctly) to be recognized in Windows.
 
peppergomez said:
Perhaps I am misunderstanding the meaning of "formatted" b/c the disk is full of data and had been recognized in Windows when it was in an external hard drive case. I think it was a WD My Book. So it was formatted (if I'm using the term correctly) to be recognized in Windows.
Click to expand...

I had this exact same thing happen. Dumped data on a 3TB MyBook. Pulled from the enclosure and put onto Windows.

I think in USB mode the drive is using some special drivers as a 3TB workaround or something because I could not do anything to get the drive to work. I even plugged back into the enclosure, no go.

Never did get the data back. Finally gave up an initialized as a GPT device. Luckily I was mainly shuffling data around drives / consolidating, so I didn't lose much.

I think when you initialized it as GPT you probably lost the data. Normally initializing takes very little time and wipes the data under most OSs.
 
I gave up on mine and decided 3TB was too much information to risk to a single drive. Good riddance I say!
 
If you do not initialize MBR to GPT disk, Windows could only recognize 2TB capacity. Windows allows you initialize the disk when it is empty, so you need transfer all data.:)
I found that there is no 3rd party tool could convert MBR to GPT without data losing.
 
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