3TB external HDD showing up as 740GB

Forums › Desktop computing › 3TB external HDD showing up as 740GB

Asmodeus

1015 posts

Uber Geek

#108155 24-Aug-2012 22:22

Hi guys,

Chucked a 3TB HDD in my external enclosure and it is showing up as ~750GB... I did a bit of reading and found out why this might be but I am wondering why the 2.2TB partition isnt showing up as well.

Seems to already be GPT format but from what I've read there should be another partition as well. I had this same issue when I put in an internal 3TB (showed up as 800+ 2200) but when I covered it to gpt it went to a single 3TB.

From what I've read it's the USB controller that is probably to blame. My question is if I do put the disk internal and format it to a single 3TB partition and then put it back in the USB enclosure, will that work?

Anything I can do at all apart from buying a new USB enclosure that supports 3TB drives?

gzt

17104 posts

Uber Geek

Lifetime subscriber

#676631 24-Aug-2012 23:15

Does gparted provide any additional?

Asmodeus

1015 posts

Uber Geek

#676637 24-Aug-2012 23:44

I ran Gparted with the drive in the USB enclosure and same thing. Could only see one 750Gb drive and couldn't change it

Distorter

220 posts

Master Geek

#676656 25-Aug-2012 01:08

The sata to usb chip won't be able to recognise the full 3TB. I reckon you will need a new enclosure that supports 3TB drives. 2.2TB seems to be the magic number.

Asmodeus

1015 posts

Uber Geek

#676667 25-Aug-2012 02:55

Yeah that's what I read.

however I plugged the HDD directly onto the mobo via a SATA cable and removed the partitions and reformatted it and it now appears as 2.78TB, even in my external USB enclosure.

Glad I don't need to upgrade anything :)

richms

28168 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#676755 25-Aug-2012 11:24

Asmodeus: Yeah that's what I read.

however I plugged the HDD directly onto the mobo via a SATA cable and removed the partitions and reformatted it and it now appears as 2.78TB, even in my external USB enclosure.

Glad I don't need to upgrade anything :)

Don't be too happy just yet, it can see a partition table that shows a 3TB partition, it doesn't mean it can access the whole disk and IME a 3TB on an obsolete bridge chip just leads to massive data corruption.

Richard rich.ms

heretohelp

360 posts

Ultimate Geek

#679432 30-Aug-2012 19:33

if you had vista or win7 you could of just resized it with the inbuilt disk manager. or if you had xp you could of tryed easeus

Hu? did i do that?
16Mb (EDO RAM), K6-II processor, 2Mb of onboard graphics. 32k dial up modem. 12 speed CD ROM. 5¼-inch floppy drive. 500Mb HDD.