Accessing the rest of my 3TB HDD.

Drez

So I have Windows 7 and a relatively new motherboard (Gigabyte Z77 UD5H).

I have a 3TB HDD which Windows 7 is installed on. It's MBR not GPT.

I cannot seem to do anything with the unallocated space (MBR only supports up to 2 TB). In Disk Management, I cannot seem to allocate the space or create a logical drive or anything with it.

1) Can I access it without third party software? If so, how?
2) Can I convert the drive to GPT without it erasing everything?

And before anyone suggests it, yes, I know, my setup is inefficient and I would benefit from getting an SSD and installing Windows on that and so on but I'm not ready to do that so what can I do with my current setup?

Fantasma

Did you read the hard disk itself?, the manufacturer could provide information on the cover such as placing a jumper for special features.

You may benefit from reading these articles:

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/278116-32-hard-drive-shows-whats-problem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table#Operating_System_support_of_GPT

Cyd Cyclone

When I got my 3TB drive, I had to install the drivers from the manufacturer to actually use the whole thing. Something to do with default drivers have a hard limit in Win 7.

Cabezone

The best thing to do with a 3TB drive is to install a SSD along side it and run the OS off of that. You can use the 3TB drive without hassle as a non OS drive.

Evigilant

Without downloading any third party software, I'm not sure if windows has any baked in commands that allow for converting from MBR to GPT WITHOUT data loss (using diskpart).

Without looking up your motherboard, in order to use the 3TB drive as your win 7 boot drive, you need a couple of things:
1) Manufacturer drivers for the install (it will install fine without, but if during the install you use GPT, don't provide drivers, designate it to use all 3TB's as a single partition, then on boot it will error out)
2) Your motherboard needs UEFI
3) Your SATA controller needs to recognize 4kb blocks

That's solely to make it your boot drive.

The last 2 are no longer an issue anymore with newer motherboards, but that's still something to be aware of. Either way, you're looking at a wipe in order to make the full 3TB's your boot drive.

If you have another drive you could instead make just a boot drive and the 3TB as your storage device, it is much easier to accomplish.

Drez

Not really. I have 2TB of j stalled programs. It's going to be a real bitch to reinstall everything.

I will likely go the route of SSD as my primary drive and 3TB as a data/game install drive but I was holding off.

bowen

Yeah that's the easiest way for you to do this.