4TB Hard Drive issue

[Jman13]

Probably a stupid question, but I recently bought a 4TB hard drive to replace my filled 2TB drive in my machine (not the boot drive, one of my 3 data drives). I've been using a 4TB drive in an external enclosure for some time as a backup drive, and the new drive arrived the other day. To transfer the data from the drive it's replacing, I installed the new drive in my external enclosure, formatted it (as GPT), successfully saw all 4TB available, and copied the 1.8TB of data from the old drive to the new.

All that went fine, but when I swapped the drives internally, Windows 8.1 only sees the drive as a 2TB drive, with the rest unallocated, and it won't assign a volume to it (so I can't actually interact with the data at all). I'm assuming there's a BIOS setting or something along those lines to work correctly, but I'm not sure what it is. Also, Windows in the Computer Management section is saying that it's an MBR disk, when I definitely formatted it as GPT, and the full size of the disk was available when it's used in an external enclosure. The machine is the one in my sig. Help?

 

[tential]

I tried to remove a drive from an external and put in an internal with my data on it.

Did not work.

Never tried it again.

Just my small 2 cents.

Had to put my drive back in, order a new drive, strip that one, put it as an internal, then transfer my data over, then take the old drive out of the external and put it as an internal and format that. After that, the second I get a drive, I put it in as an internal.

 

[iluvdeal]

I had a similar issue, see this thread: http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2387970

 

[Charlie98]

Some machines won't recognize a drive over 2TBs. There is a work around, Acronis has a utility, for example, to set it up.

What Windows probably wants you to do is reformat the disk... which will wipe the data.

Do you still have the data on the old drive? What brand drive is the new one?

 

[Cerb]

Short version: use a USB dock or enclosure that specifically claims support for 4TB (or larger) disks. If that was not an advertised feature, assume it won't work, and use internal SATA ports, instead.

Some machines won't recognize a drive over 2TBs.

If not using RAID modes, any Intel or AMD ATA controller from the late P3 days or newer should read >2TB without any problems. Getting over the ~128GB limit gave plenty of room for future expansion.

 

[Charlie98]

If not using RAID modes, any Intel or AMD ATA controller from the late P3 days or newer should read >2TB without any problems. Getting over the ~128GB limit gave plenty of room for future expansion.

No, the controller does, the OS does not... and I think that's the root of the problem the OP has...? 😕

 

[Cerb]

No, the controller does, the OS does not... and I think that's the root of the problem the OP has...? 😕

Vista (2003, to split hairs) and up will read GPT. XP and older should, with a BIOS-based mobo, see a drive with no partitions.

7 can boot from GPT, but it's probably easiest to do that with a fresh all-UEFI install (board must boot UEFI, Windows installer run in UEFI, and HDD initialized GPT). The same is true with 8, but most 8 PCs are going to default to all that out of the box.

 

[Jman13]

You copied data or you made a clone of a drive? 🙂

Copied data. I'm a photographer...this drive is my photos drive and nothing more. It's pure data. I copied all the data (yes I still have the other drive intact...it'll eventually be moved off-site as a backup) to the new drive in my USB enclosure. It was formatted using GPT. When in the enclosure, all 4TB are there and accessible. If I then remove the drive from the enclosure, and install it in the machine as an internal drive (which I'd like to do), it only sees 2 TB and I can't even assign the volume to access that 2TB. (Computer management sees it as a 4TB drive with a 2TB volume and the rest unallocated).

 

[Charlie98]

Copied data. I'm a photographer...this drive is my photos drive and nothing more. It's pure data. I copied all the data (yes I still have the other drive intact...it'll eventually be moved off-site as a backup) to the new drive in my USB enclosure. It was formatted using GPT. When in the enclosure, all 4TB are there and accessible. If I then remove the drive from the enclosure, and install it in the machine as an internal drive (which I'd like to do), it only sees 2 TB and I can't even assign the volume to access that 2TB. (Computer management sees it as a 4TB drive with a 2TB volume and the rest unallocated).

I think what you might need to do (and maybe Cerb can back me up...) is install the 4TB internally, let Windows initialize it as a GPT volume, and then copy your 2TB back over to the new drive.

When I installed my 3TB drives in my HTPC I had to fool around with them a bit... and I think they are GPT volumes. But this was with new drives with no data to lose, once I got them installed and initialized, then I transferred data from the smaller drives they were replacing.

 

[Jman13]

I think what you might need to do (and maybe Cerb can back me up...) is install the 4TB internally, let Windows initialize it as a GPT volume, and then copy your 2TB back over to the new drive.

When I installed my 3TB drives in my HTPC I had to fool around with them a bit... and I think they are GPT volumes. But this was with new drives with no data to lose, once I got them installed and initialized, then I transferred data from the smaller drives they were replacing.

I can certainly try this. One of the issues, though, is that when it's installed internally at the moment, I can't seem to do anything to it (can't delete partitions, etc., or access the drive for formatting or the like...it sees the drive exists, but I can't seem to do anything with it.)

 

[Charlie98]

I can certainly try this. One of the issues, though, is that when it's installed internally at the moment, I can't seem to do anything to it (can't delete partitions, etc., or access the drive for formatting or the like...it sees the drive exists, but I can't seem to do anything with it.)

Even: Right click Computer>Manage>Disk Management>(select drive)>Format?

As I say, you may have to use a utility like Acronis, boot into it outside of Windows, and reformat the disk.

 

[Data-Medics]

Some USB docks/adapters don't properly recognize the sector size of newer drives (2Tb+) and won't partition/format it properly.

It might seem to work at first, but when you move it over to SATA (which will recognize the sector size correctly) it's all messed up.