Question Is it possible to install a 4TB SATA HDD on a Acer X1900 Mini PC ?

eh936

Distinguished
Mar 17, 2012
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OK so I would like to upgrade an old 500GB SATA HDD on this old mini PC. I want to install a 4TB SATA HDD but the BIOS (MegaTrend) only sees it as a 1.8TB. Can I install Windows 7 Pro on this drive using MBR partitioning the drive into two partitions ? Will Windows 7 allow me to create two partitions so that I can make use of the entire drive ?
 

Lutfij

Titan
Moderator
If my info is correct, your prebuilt should have a G41 chipset, you're on an Intel platform from about 2 decades ago.
I want to install a 4TB SATA HDD but the BIOS (MegaTrend) only sees it as a 1.8TB.
If memory serves me right, I think 2TB was the max you could have working with that chipset, unless board makers added BIOS support to said motherboard.

Might want to just shoehorn a small capacity SSD in that prebuilt and leave a large capacity HDD for storage.
 

eh936

Distinguished
Mar 17, 2012
59
1
18,535
If my info is correct, your prebuilt should have a G41 chipset, you're on an Intel platform from about 2 decades ago.
I want to install a 4TB SATA HDD but the BIOS (MegaTrend) only sees it as a 1.8TB.
If memory serves me right, I think 2TB was the max you could have working with that chipset, unless board makers added BIOS support to said motherboard.

Might want to just shoehorn a small capacity SSD in that prebuilt and leave a large capacity HDD for storage.
Thank you for the response. What I did try is I created two partitions using MBR of approximately 2TB each. I installed Windows 7 64 bit on the primary but the second partition is unallocated and not usable. From Disk Management I cannot convert this unallocated space to allocated by creating a another volume. Any ideas ?
 

USAFRet

Titan
Moderator
Thank you for the response. What I did try is I created two partitions using MBR of approximately 2TB each. I installed Windows 7 64 bit on the primary but the second partition is unallocated and not usable. From Disk Management I cannot convert this unallocated space to allocated by creating a another volume. Any ideas ?
MBR will only see/utilize 2.2TB max. No matter what the physical drive size is, or whatever partitions may exist.