Hard drive, lower capacity than expected

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blackjack17

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#144180 9-May-2014 19:11

Hi all

I purchased three seagate 4tb harddives a few weeks ago. Two of which I threw into a new HTPC and filled up, both of which had the expected capacity of 3.63TB.

I finally got round to formatting the last one and it seems to be showing a capacity of 2.72, which is what I would expect if it was a 3 TB.

Anybody have any idea as to what might be going on?

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#1041052 9-May-2014 19:27

Check the model and serial number reported in something like seatools are what you see on the label on the top first.

Take it back second.

Richard rich.ms

Coil

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#1041064 9-May-2014 19:35

My 4TB is the same size, Same with my 1TB, Thats 932GB on 2 different brands.

mattwnz

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#1041065 9-May-2014 19:37

Maybe someone stuck the wrong sticker on it and it is 3GB. The diskname though should tell you what it's capacity should be

Behodar

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#1041068 9-May-2014 19:39

What model number shows up in Device Manager? (It's been a while since I've used Windows but I think the model number shows up in there...).

Coil

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#1041069 9-May-2014 19:39

Brainwave!!!
Whats your motherboard and bios version?

freitasm

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#1041077 9-May-2014 19:59

Are you sure there isn't another partition in that drive? Have you checked with Computer Management or Diskpart?

What OS version?

freitasm

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#1041078 9-May-2014 19:59

And moved to desktop forum as it doesn't sound like a Windows problem.

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Coil

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#1041080 9-May-2014 20:02

freitasm: And moved to desktop forum as it doesn't sound like a Windows problem.

Doesn't vista not recognize over 2.5TB? Im thinking more BIOS support for larger disks.

freitasm

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#1041081 9-May-2014 20:04

We don't know which version of Windows, but seeing the other HDD formatted fine I suppose both OS and BIOS support the drives. Hence my question on checking for another partition on the drive.

Athlonite

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#1041109 9-May-2014 20:43

freitasm: We don't know which version of Windows, but seeing the other HDD formatted fine I suppose both OS and BIOS support the drives. Hence my question on checking for another partition on the drive.

He said he chucked two in the HTPC and filled them up didn't say he formatted them first which leads me to believe he's putting the last one into an PC

so what we need from the OP is Motherboard make/model and BIOS version we also need to know which OS he's running and whether it's 32bit or 64bit

If he's using windows 7/Vista then he'll need to initialize the HDD using the GPT partition type and format it as NTFS most 32bit OS's will have a problem with larger than 2TB HDD's

blackjack17

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#1041119 9-May-2014 20:57

OS is windows 7 64 bit

both of the earlier ones were formatted on this computer and transferred across (moved media from 3 computers to one)

no other partitions

screen shot of disk management

serial number wd-wmatv5829513 doesn't match anything

model number wdc wd1001fals-00j7b1 a google search doesn't help

seems strange, was brought through pbtech, should be a legit drive

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Inphinity

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#1041120 9-May-2014 20:59

blackjack17:
serial number wd-wmatv5829513 doesn't match anything

model number wdc wd1001fals-00j7b1 a google search doesn't help

seems strange, was brought through pbtech, should be a legit drive

Your original post has a photo of a Seagate drive, then you provide WD model & serial number. Which is it? wd1001fals is a Western Digital 1TB drive.

blackjack17

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#1041122 9-May-2014 21:00

Athlonite:
freitasm: We don't know which version of Windows, but seeing the other HDD formatted fine I suppose both OS and BIOS support the drives. Hence my question on checking for another partition on the drive.

He said he chucked two in the HTPC and filled them up didn't say he formatted them first which leads me to believe he's putting the last one into an PC

so what we need from the OP is Motherboard make/model and BIOS version we also need to know which OS he's running and whether it's 32bit or 64bit

If he's using windows 7/Vista then he'll need to initialize the HDD using the GPT partition type and format it as NTFS most 32bit OS's will have a problem with larger than 2TB HDD's

was formatted with GPT, NTFSusing 64 bit windows 7 (ultimate)

if it was the gbt/mbr issue I woul expect the drive to show less than 2.2TB

It just seems strange that it appears to be a 3tb drive when the sticker is clearly a 4tb drive

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blackjack17

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#1041127 9-May-2014 21:03

Inphinity:
blackjack17:
serial number wd-wmatv5829513 doesn't match anything

model number wdc wd1001fals-00j7b1 a google search doesn't help

seems strange, was brought through pbtech, should be a legit drive

Your original post has a photo of a Seagate drive, then you provide WD model & serial number. Which is it? wd1001fals is a Western Digital 1TB drive.

oops

model number st4000dm000 1f2168
serial number z301g5vw

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blackjack17

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#1041128 9-May-2014 21:05

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