New 3TB Drive Only Shows 746GB

I bought the Seagate barracuda 3TB and it shows as 746GB on my another computer with Windows Vista SP2 32-bit in GPT mode. I have asked this problem at Seagate forum and the one guy who replied didn't know how to solve it. I am using the 3TB Seagate drive in my Rosewill RX-358-U3B enclosure, and I have read that a Hitachi 3TB had no compatibility issues in that particular enclosure. Does anyone know how to have my computer realize that the Seagate drive is 3TB?"

OP has said the disk was already GPT, unless I am missing something. Maybe a thorough check to see if it's really GPT is in order.

Check your version of Intel RST driver too - according to here this can also cause the 746GB issue.

Latest Vista one is here : Download Intel Rapid Storage Technology (AHCI) for Windows XP/Vista

Hi there

@Skylly

I think Windows will sort this problem out - the standard drivers will work whatever the computer - although if you can get the correct drivers that's always better.

In elevated cmd mode

1) diskpart
2) list disk -- select the 3TB disk (select disk nn where nn is the nr of the 3TB HDD seen by windows)
3) clean
4) convert GPT
5) create partition primary
6) format quick fs=ntfs
7 assign
8) exit

If you want to use this as a boot disk
after 4)

create partition efi size=100
format quick fs=fat32
create partition primary
format quick fs=ntfs

Note you will need to ensure computer boots in efi mode if you want to use a gpt as a boot disk. Otherwise a normal gpt disk doesn't need an efi partition on it so just type the first set of instructions from command mode.

XP systems whether on real or virtual machines can also see /access HDD's of several TB size from Linux NAS servers via samba too --but that's another issue.

Cheers
jimbo

Skylly said:

I bought the Seagate barracuda 3TB and it shows as 746GB on my another computer with Windows Vista SP2 32-bit in GPT mode. I have asked this problem at Seagate forum and the one guy who replied didn't know how to solve it. I am using the 3TB Seagate drive in my Rosewill RX-358-U3B enclosure, and I have read that a Hitachi 3TB had no compatibility issues in that particular enclosure. Does anyone know how to have my computer realize that the Seagate drive is 3TB?"

Hi,
I am surprised. Your post is exactly reproduced here How to Fix: New 3TB Drive Only Shows 746GB which incidentally discusses all possible solutions.

Two left out in the above suggestions by learned authors here - but mentioned in the above article:
If you have an AMD CPU, IRST is meaningless. "try updating the chipset and any SATA/ RAID drivers you can find".

Is it that your external enclosure is limited to handle only upto 2TB HDDs? "try connecting external hard drive to a computer via SATA".

Having said that all, I would have appreciated, had you posted a screenshot of how your external HDD looks like in Partition Wizard. For me seeing is believing . @eLPuSHeR mentioned it in post #4. So again not anything new .