Have 3TB drive, but BIOS only recognizes it as 800GB

[technomannt]

I have a new Western Digital 3 TB internal HD that I've been trying to get to work with my Windows 7 (32 bit). When I boot up or when I enter the BIOS, I see that it's only recognized as 800 GB. If I try to start Windows, it will either only get as far as the Windows logo or I get a STOP error shortly after logging on. If I put the drive in something like an enclosure which connects to USB, it'll work. Then, I'm able to log onto Windows and see it in Disk Management where I formatted it as GPT instead of MBR. My BIOS is American Megatrends 5.21 (12/17/2008). Is there an update for this BIOS that will recognize the full 3 TB or is there something else that I need to do to get it to be recognized? I have an old HP d4996t Pavilion.

 

[bucknutty]

Sorry boss, It is going to be very hard for you to use any drive larger than 2tb on your system. Your bios on the mother board does not support anything larger than 2tb, and even if it did you would still need to find a 3rd party solution for windows, becuase microsoft does not support anything larger than 2tb on 32 bit systems. This article is a good read to learn more.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/235088/everything_you_need_to_know_about_3TB_hard_drives.html

 

[technomannt]

Yea, I read that before. I should clarify that I'm not trying to boot off of it. The 3 TB drive is my storage drive. I was able to format it as GPT and not split it, i.e. it's just one large volume. Then, Windows allowed me to use the entire 3 TB on it.

 

[D_Know_WD]

Hi there technomannt,

I believe that upgrading the SATA drivers for your Motherboard should fix the issue.

Cheers,
D_Know_WD