I cannot format the WD 3Tb hdd

[kerosen]

I'm still strugling to format my brand new WD Caviar Green 3Tb WD30EZRSDTL SATA. Last try was on a friend's  PC running Vista 64, and both the BIOS (non UEFI) and the Disk Manager see only 764Gb. I haven't used the provided PCI express card, as I've understood that it is necessary only when you want to make the hdd bootable.

I want just to format the hdd on NTFS with one partition.

Any idea what should I try?

[fzabkar]

The 764GB problem is a 2TiB limit issue. Are you using GPT partitioning rather than MBR?

Otherwise you could always experiment with the PCI card. If Vista can see the full 3TB when the drive is attached to the card but not the motherboard, then I would suspect a driver limitation.

[lexxx]

Goto disk management , delete all partitions on the disk , right click on the gray part of the disk in disk management (should say disk 0 1 2 for example do this ONLY for 3tb disks ) convert to GPT, once that is done you should be able to use all of the disk space.................. If that not work you need to use the supplied pci-e SATA card as your BIOS in your system is not compatible (bios update mite support it) why they are supplying the card due to motherboard not been compatible (anything older the 6 months or none UEFI BIOS have an good chance of not working )............ the pci-e card is not bootable as far as I know its just an 2 port SATA card that supports 3tb disks .......... using dots as can't use new lines on mobile (crapy forum software this is the only site I have ever used that it does not work on)

[kerosen]

The BIOS and Vista see only 764Gb.

How should I convert to GPT?

I've understood that the PCI card is used only if you want to make the disk bootable and only on W7 or Vista 64bit. Otherwise, if you want to use the disk as secondary drive under W7 or Vista it should work without the PCI card. There is still an issue with some Intel chipsets which might need a driver to cope with 3Tb.

Please advice on the GPt issue, how could I force Vista to format it with GPT instead of MBR?  And, as the BIOS sees it on 764Gb how could I expect Vista to see more?

[lexxx]

did you even bother to read my post (sorry)

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k

If that not work you need to use the supplied pci-e SATA card as your BIOS in your system is not compatible with HDDs bigger then 2TB (bios update mite support it) thats why they are supplying the card due to motherboard not been compatible (any BIOS older the 3-6 months or none UEFI BIOS have an very good chance of not working )

the pci-e card is not bootable as far as I know its just an 2 port SATA card that supports 3tb disks, thats why it comes with the hdd (it also states that i think with the info that comes with it)

you can not boot an GPT disk on an None UEFI bios full stop not matter what card you use (not with out messing a lot and can make problems)

[kerosen]

Here is an interesting link.

http://techreport.com/articles.x/19871

I'll use the pci card, as there is no other option left. In general, I read all the posts, don't worry.  thanks for the advice

[kerosen]

Here is an update.

- If the PCI card is used to format the 3TB drive then this card should be always used to see the hard drive. Therefore you cannot move the drive to another computer without the PCI card.

- My drive has been formated by a jukebox at 2.1Tb and in fact the jukebox created a partition of 2.1Tb and another of 764Gb. The 2.1TB partition is visible/accesible from W7/Vista without the PCI card.

- In order to format the drive and to use it afterwards without the PCI card you need a new W7 PC with a UEFI BIOS. Aparently only few motherboards, new from 2011,  have UEFI BIOS inside.

I've given the drive to a computer shop to format it NTFS using a motherboard with UEFI BIOS. They told me that it will take 30-40 hours and then a WD software to aligh heads and sectors needs to be run.

[fzabkar]

AIUI, Windows 7 and Vista both automatically align partitions to 4K boundaries, whether the drives are AF or non-AF. You don't need to run any WD/Acronis alignment utility.

Assuming an average access time of 100 MB/s, a full format of a 3TB drive should require ...

(3 x 10^12) / (100 x 10^6) / 3600 = 8.3 hours

[lexxx]

I agree 30hrs is long, but 8hrs should be Long as well, 3-4hrs max I would say if I did an full format (8hrs if it was not 4k aligned, I did that on Windows 2003 server by mistake when I should of plugged the disk into an vista/7 based OS and formatted it then put it back in the 2k3 server),,,,,,,, ,,,,, on phone so can't make new lines as it ignores them ,,,,,,,please fix your fourms to be phone friendly ,,,,,,,,,,,,,, (no shop would ever do an full format they have better things to do , at best booting the pc would of taken longer to boot then would if taken then to quick format the disk ),,,,,, I edit this when get home,,,,,,,, Acronis alignment utility Is very slow

[DonCapone]

I had the same problem with WD Caviar Green 3TB, i could only get 746gb to work. I have a 64 bit win7 INTEL comp. The thing i had to do to get everything to work was to update my raid/sata drivers at

http://www.intel.com/p/en_US/support/highlights/chpsts/imsm

then i chose automatially detect and update drivers and software ,then search raid/sata update and restart computer and thats it, now i have 2 partitions a 746gb and 1.99TB Disk, i hope this was helpfull, goodluck to all