8tb showing as 2tb

[polecole]

Ive bought an 8tb Seagate Barracuda for my new Windows 10 system. The bios sees 8tb but Windows 10 has it down as 2tb. I go in to computer management and there is a 5tb unallocated section that when i right click I have no options apart from properties.

Any ideas please?

 

[USAFRet]

It's formatted incorrectly.
It needs to be GPT format instead of MBR.

Hopefully this is not the OS (and only) drive?

 

[polecole]

yes its the operating system. How do I change it to GPT. If I have to start again and format it then not a biggie. Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

yes its the operating system. How do I change it to GPT. If I have to start again and format it then not a biggie. Thanks.

Yes, starting over is the easiest way.
And your BIOS needs to be in UEFI mode instead of legacy.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Use windows 10 utility mbr2gpt to convert mbr OS disk to gpt disk.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

 

[USAFRet]

And personally, I think an 8TB HDD for the OS is a bit silly in todays environment.

An SSD for the OS drive, and then whatever HDD fits the rest of the budget.

 

[mdd1963]

administrative tools/computer mngmt (right click, run as admin)/storage/disk mngmt

right click on disk in question, should see a 'convert to GPT' option.....

 

[USAFRet]

Use windows 10 utility mbr2gpt to convert mbr OS disk to gpt disk.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/deployment/mbr-to-gpt

I know this exists but I've never tried it.

Question:
Does it also reformat the entire drive space, merging the current 2TB and the currently unsable 6TB into a single 8TB partition?

 

[mdd1963]

I think it just converts it, and then you can expand the partition afterward to include the unallocated space...

 

[polecole]

tried converting to GPT by putting drive in to bay on my other pc. Put HD back in pc and tried to install windows but it said drive is GPT partion and windows cant install on this. Tried deleting both the sections or partitions, not sure what you call them, and installed windows on the 7.8tb, just waiting for it to finish to see if it goes back to the 2tb or ive got the near 8tb

 

[USAFRet]

tried converting to GPT by putting drive in to bay on my other pc. Put HD back in pc and tried to install windows but it said drive is GPT partion and windows cant install on this. Tried deleting both the sections or partitions, not sure what you call them, and installed windows on the 7.8tb, just waiting for it to finish to see if it goes back to the 2tb or ive got the near 8tb

As long as you reformatted the whole thing as a single GPT, it should be fine.

 

[polecole]

No back to 2tb! Computer Management has it down as 7452.04gb: system reserve 549mb .. C: 2047 NTFS and 5404gb unallocated

 

[USAFRet]

No back to 2tb! Computer Management has it down as 7452.04gb: system reserve 549mb .. C: 2047 NTFS and 5404gb unallocated

During the install, did you delete ALL existing partitions, leaving one large blank space?

 

[BFG-9000]

tried to install windows but it said drive is GPT partion and windows cant install on this

Not only does the system need to boot in UEFI mode, the bootable install media must also be GPT. If you don't have another working UEFI system to run the Media Creation Tool on, follow the Rufus instructions here.

 

[polecole]

No back to 2tb! Computer Management has it down as 7452.04gb: system reserve 549mb .. C: 2047 NTFS and 5404gb unallocated

During the install, did you delete ALL existing partitions, leaving one large blank space?

Yes all of them just one large 7,8tb space

 

[SkyNetRising]

tried to install windows but it said drive is GPT partion and windows cant install on this.

You have to boot from windows installation media in UEFI mode.
If installation is complaining about GPT partitioning to be a problem, this means, you have not booted into UEFI mode.
From boot menu choose option, that has [UEFI] in front of it. If you don't have such option, your installation media is not prepared for UEFI mode.