HGST 4tb drive won't partition as data drive in Windows 7 32-bit

[sackbut]

I'm trying to use an HGST 4tb drive as a data drive in Windows 7 32 bit. My MSI motherboard has the Intel G31/ICH7 chipset with the latest drivers (9.1.2.1008) and traditional AMI BIOS (1.7). From what I can find in Intel documentation, the G31/ICH7 chipset should support GPT. In theory it should work, but when partitioning times out after converting to GPT in either the console drive manager or diskpart.exe. The entire capacity of the drive is recognized (3725.9 GB) and converting to GPT worked fine. When I try partitioning (or partitioning and formatting) in Disk Manager, it takes a while, but then I get an error saying that the "view is not up to date." Refreshing, restarting the Disk Manager, or restarting the computer does not help. Is there anything else I can try? Would putting the drive in an external enclosure and connecting it via USB (I only have 2.0) or eSATA with a separate PCI SATA controller card make any difference?

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey sackbut. You could try connecting it externally as you've mentioned, hopefully this helps. But this shouldn't happen. I'd recommend that you try another HDD if you have any, with the same SATA connection to see if the cable hasn't gone faulty or something.

Cheers,
Boogieman_WD

 

[sackbut]

Hey sackbut. You could try connecting it externally as you've mentioned, hopefully this helps. But this shouldn't happen. I'd recommend that you try another HDD if you have any, with the same SATA connection to see if the cable hasn't gone faulty or something.

Cheers,
Boogieman_WD

Pretty sure it's not the cable. I switched cables and the same thing happens. I don't have any other HDD > 2tb available. Windows 7 Disk Manager and diskpart.exe see the drive with the proper capacity and allow me to convert it to GPT and clean it. The Paragon HGST GPT Disk Manager also seems to see the drive properly and tells me "HGST ultra-capacity drive is already correctly recognized by your operating system. Additional driver installation is not required" and goes on to tell me to use Windows Disk Manager to convert to GPT. I think I am going to try reinstalling Windows 7 as 64-bit (I downloaded the ISO) using the key from my 32-bit Windows 7 disk. I can't be sure, but I think Microsoft will let me do that for free. Of course, it requires a clean installation and therefore backing up and reinstalling all software and data, so it's a major pain, and might not solve the problem. Nobody seems to know anything about this!

 

[sackbut]

One other thing - when I look at the drive in my BIOS setup, it is listed as a 4TB drive. I'm not sure if this proves the BIOS is supposed to support drives > 2TB but it seems as if it might.

 

[sackbut]

Here is a link to the HGST technical data that apparently hoodwinked me into thinking this should work without much hassle.

http://www.hgst.com/support/high-capacity-hard-drives

Notice that the chart at the bottom says that a high-capacity GPT drive will work as a data drive under Windows 7 32-bit using the Hitachi GPT Disk Manager, and that the BIOS is NOT a factor. Well, first of all, the Hitachi GPT Disk Manager itself gives me a message that says it is not needed with Windows 7 32-bit. Secondly, the tech support guy at Hitachi/WD told me on the phone that my BIOS might be the problem, in spite of what Hitachi's chart told me. My BIOS sees the 4TB capacity of the drive, so what is the problem? According to the chart, use as a data drive should even be possible with XP, so it seems they are saying even pretty old BIOS machines should work. Apparently Hitachi didn't do much testing before publishing their chart.