Seagate 5tb external into internal drive

[KiraNova]

So I have a sea gate 5tb external hard drive, just finished building a new build but after installing my apps and games I don't have a lot of space left. So I figured I could take the drive out and use it internally instead of externally. Now the drive is out and after plugging it into the power and sata the pc seems to recognize it only once after turning on. I bring up disk management and it asks for me to initialize the drive before use. Upon trying either of the two options it gives an error "specified files not found" after refreshing disk management the drive is no longer there, and it isn't in device manger either. If I turn off and turn back on same happens and I am unable to initialize it so that I can use it. Bios seem to be in place I even turned the hotplug option on but nothing. There is no problem with the drive because I put it back inside the external hard drive compartment and it worked without issue like that.

My question is does it need to be formatted a certain way or maybe my Msi M3 B150 motherboard does not support 5tb drives? Any type of help is appreciated because right now I don't have the money to buy more space.

Specs:
Windows 10 Home edition
I5 6600k
8gb Ram
Zotac Amp Edtion 1060 graphics card
Corsair CX 600w
And the other few extras that you need.

 

[Guest]

If there is nothing on your 5TB, do the following:

Stage #1:
Install the hard drive in your computer
Power it up
Go to Start > Run
Type cmd and click OK
Type "diskpart" then click Yes
Type "list disk"
Type "select disk XX" - where XX is the number of your hard drive or USB drive (IMPORTANT - MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SELECTED THE CORRECT DRIVE!!) and hit Enter
Type "clean disk" and hit Enter
Type "exit" and "exit" at the other CMD screen.

Stage #2:
Go to Start > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management
The drive you just erased with DiskPart will be shown with a black header
Initalize it using GPT and not MBR (as it's over 2TB)
Wait about 30-60 seconds
Then it should appear as a 5TB HDD
You can either set it up as a whole drive or partition it - select New Simple Volume before you format it.

PS: Don't type the speech marks - just the words in them!
PPS: Be careful to select the CORRECT drive, as you will lose EVERYTHING!

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH Community, @KiraNova!

If the suggested solution from @electricdragon doesn't work, I believe it would have to do with the fact that your HDD is configured with 4KB LBAs that is something typical for larger externals. This means that when you remove the HDD from its original enclosure and connect it via SATA, you expose it to its native 512e LBAs. Unfortunately, this requires to re-format the drive in order to be able to use it. If you put it back in the enclosure, you should be able to access your files and back them up elsewhere before attempting to initialize and then format the HDD via SATA again.

If initializing it using the GPT (GUID Partition Table) doesn't allow you to format the HDD properly, I'd strongly recommend going to the HDD manufacturer's official website and use their brand-specific formatting tool to fully erase drive (Write zeros).

Hope this helps. Keep us posted!
SuperSoph_WD