How do I get Windows 7 to correctly recognise a 3TB Seagate internal HDD?

[timonthenet]

Hi.

I recently purchased 2 x 3TB hard drives (internal), made by Seagate, with the idea of using them with the Asrock N68-VSX (or equivalent) Main Board. I understood that the Windows 7 SP1, 32-bit currently run under, would correctly recognize the drive if Initialized as a Data Drive (ie, not MBR). However, this being done, no matter what I do, the Disk Manager under W7 only see's approx. 744GB, not the full 3TB, or even the two seperate partiotionable sections (2.0TB + 800GB).

I have tried the DiskWizard provided by Seagate to use the drive, but it keeps saying the nVidia driver is out of date, and the Asrock FAQ's just tell me to use W7 SP1, which I already have done. I even made sure that Windows update was used to make sure windows was as up-to-date as possible.

Can I use a 3TB drive with the N68 series Main Boards, and if so, how do I get Windows to correctly register the Drive size?

So greatful if anyone can help, since all examples on the internet don't appear to work with this Main Board.

Kind regards,

Tim.

[artdrivers]

How many drives do you have connected? Is Windows on a different drive? It's the Bios that does not recognize a 3tb drive. You may want to get a motherboard with UEFI BIOS. That is the easy solution. You must format to multiple drives. 2 different solutions below you may want to try.
Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) internal hard drive - reviews - Servers & Storage - Hard Disk Drives (Internal) - PC World Australia

Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) internal hard drive - reviews - Servers & Storage - Hard Disk Drives (Internal) - PC World Australia
DiscWizard | Seagate

[wazza300]

i think you need to create a gpt partition rather than a mbr partition aswell

[timonthenet]

How many drives do you have connected? Is Windows on a different drive? It's the Bios that does not recognize a 3tb drive. You may want to get a motherboard with UEFI BIOS. That is the easy solution. You must format to multiple drives. 2 different solutions below you may want to try.
Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) internal hard drive - reviews - Servers & Storage - Hard Disk Drives (Internal) - PC World Australia

Seagate Barracuda 3TB (ST3000DM001) internal hard drive - reviews - Servers & Storage - Hard Disk Drives (Internal) - PC World Australia
DiscWizard | Seagate

Thank you Artdriver for your help.

The 3TB drive will purely reside as a secondary data HDD, with the OS with Boot record etc, being on a seperate smaller drive. Thus, initiallizing as a GBT partition should be sufficient. (Windows 7 is supposed to accept larger drives, as long as they contain data only (ie, no Boot sector)).

I have already seen the links provided, and as I mentioned DiskWizard doesn't work with the N68 series motherboard as it stands.

Do you know if a firmware update for the N68 will work (I don't fancy having to completely replace the MBoard, and then replace the OS as well - it could be a very lengthy and uneccasary solution?

Regards,

Tim.

[harleyman]

AsRock has a tool to unlock drives over 2 T. I am not sure if it works for your board or not though... Worth a shot

[artdrivers]

How do I get Windows 7 to correctly recognise a 3TB Seagate internal HDD?

Did you try the Asrock 3TB+ unlocker Utility? You can find it on the link provided below Just scroll down to the Utilities section. You may want to update the BIOS as well. You will want to be sure that this is your motherboard before a BIOS flash ASRock > Products > Motherboard > N68-VS3 FX > Download

[timonthenet]

AsRock has a tool to unlock drives over 2 T. I am not sure if it works for your board or not though... Worth a shot

Hi.

Thank you for your suggestion. I did notice the 'Beyond 2TB' tool by Asrock, but it doesn't appear compatible with my model of board (unlike others in the N68 series!).

When I install the Program, it doesn't produce any icons to run it (even when using Admin mode), only to uninstal it. It does look as though a new motherboard will be needed if I am to use internal 3TB drives within a PC. The only other alternative would be to use a NAS 2-bay enclosure to house both drives, as long as the 'Box' is able to support 3TB Drives (a lot of NAS enclosures seem to only have a max. bare drive size per bay of 2TB, just as for a PC).

If there is anyone out there who has managed to use a 3TB Drive on an N68C-S UCC Board, I would be so grateful to hear from you.

Thank you once again,

Tim.