Installing Windows 7 on a 3TB WD Green Hard Drive

[Mista-J]

Any help would be appreciated.
I am a professional and am having a terrible time getting this to work.
The machine is an alienwear and had the option of being purchased with a3tb drive, so I am sure it will work.
Here is what I have done and it is driving me crazy.
the 2tb drive crashed and so I am attempting to install a 3tb drive.
when I install windows 7 HP 64 bit it only shows up as 746 GB.
UEFI boot is on, it is initialized as GPT
I have re-initialized it several times - both slaving it on different machines as well as using diskpart.

I am completely frustrated and would appreciate the help.

 

[geraldoferrero]

when you partition the 3TB drive, you should use GUID partition table type instead of MBR. MBR partition table can make use of as much as 2TB disk space. so you can use partitionguru to repartition the 3TB drive and choose GUID partition table.
let me know if that works.

 

[Mista-J]

I definitely use GUID... still no dice.

 

[Mista-J]

I formatted it using GUID and when I booted to install W7, it reported that I could not install to that partition.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, Mista-J!

I'm very sorry to hear about your struggles with the 3TB WD Green drive! 🙁
I'm not sure what commands you have used in diskpart or if you have tried these ones:
press Shift+F10 and a DOS window should open
- diskpart
- list disk (you should see only Disk0)
- sel disk 0
- clean
Then close and refresh. Select the listed disk > Next
[Source: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/answers/id-1948092/windows-installed-drive-partition.html]
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/faq/id-1923415/install-windows-3tb-4tb-larger-hdd.html

Hope these help! Keep me posted!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[ArtPog]

I recall this was a problem that surfaced a number of years ago although I haven't heard anything more about it in recent years.

The problem apparently involved the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver. As I recall (but am not absolutely certain about this) the problem could be resolved by updating that Intel driver. There may have been more to the "fix" but I don't recall what it was.

In any event I would strongly suggest you contact Alienware tech support and get their input.