Over 2TB non-boot drives on non-EFI systems

dkm777

Senior member
Nov 21, 2010
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Hi,

I know it's not possible to use a hard drive larger than 2TB as a boot drive under old BIOS systems, but what about using as a non-bootable only for storage? I'm thinking of putting a 3TB Hitachi in my rig to use for backups. And maybe another one as a backup of a backup. After accidentally deleting and then restoring a great deal of files (~20% of which didn't make it) I'm finally accepting the idea that data is worthless without a backup.
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
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It should work fine, however you'll need to use a GPT (GUID Partition Table) in order to allocate all of the space so make sure your OS supports GPT.
 

dkm777

Senior member
Nov 21, 2010
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Does Windows 7 support GPT? I vaguely remember GPT being mentioned somewhere in the installer.
 

mv2devnull

Golden Member
Apr 13, 2010
1,516
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It should. Windows 7 can be installed on EFI system where one has a GPT disk, so the code is there. Thus, it is up to the tools (Disk Manager?) whether they support creation of GPT.
 

mikeymikec

Lifer
May 19, 2011
19,410
12,937
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Here's my recent experience of (ending up in) pretty much your exact situation:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2238389&highlight=

Summary:
You won't get a >2TB boot disk on Win7 on a pre-EFI system to use its full capacity.
Using it as a second (non-boot) disk is fine, provided your BIOS supports >2TB disks, you just need to convert the disk (I deleted all partitions first) to GPT, which I did in Disk Management by right-clicking on the disk entry (left of its partition layout) and selecting 'convert to GPT disk'. It did it in a couple of seconds. I then created the partition layout I wanted (in this case, one partition spanning the whole 3TB disk).

I think you need the 64-bit version of Win7 (fairly sure).
 

Nothinman

Elite Member
Sep 14, 2001
30,672
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Here's my recent experience of (ending up in) pretty much your exact situation:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2238389&highlight=

Summary:
You won't get a >2TB boot disk on Win7 on a pre-EFI system to use its full capacity.
Using it as a second (non-boot) disk is fine, provided your BIOS supports >2TB disks, you just need to convert the disk (I deleted all partitions first) to GPT, which I did in Disk Management by right-clicking on the disk entry (left of its partition layout) and selecting 'convert to GPT disk'. It did it in a couple of seconds. I then created the partition layout I wanted (in this case, one partition spanning the whole 3TB disk).

I think you need the 64-bit version of Win7 (fairly sure).

I think you only need 64-bit Win7 if you want to boot from a GPT disk, but with XP you need 64-bit release to even be able to mount it.