Seagate ST3000dm001 Hard drive question

[dan25harris]

Hi there,

So back when Windows 7 only allowed use of 2tb max hard drives I adjusted my current Seagate ST3000 to only have around 2450gb showing to windows or around that to get it to be seen. Now in Windows 10 I have the same amount of space because at the time of doing that to the hard drive I used a program to artificially limit the drive so as windows could see it correctly, even though I was sacrificing space.

Is there anyway to reverse this? I've tried the Disk management tool within windows and there are no hidden or un-allocated partitions?
I just want the drive to its full size as to my knowledge the limitations of windows 7 are gone?

Thanks for the time in reading this, I've just done a 14 hour shift so apologies for grammar, spelling and layout etc, i'm too tired to think straight!

Thanks for any advice, I'm heading to bed now but will reply to answers in the morning.

Much appreciated, Dan.

 

[USAFRet]

Please post a screencap of your current Disk Management window.

 

[dan25harris]

Hi,

link from an image hosting site: https://ibb.co/czXKDK

Thanks for the reply!

 

[jsmithepa]

This is not a limitation of Win7, is a limitation of old BIOS. Newer BIOS that can handle >2TB are UEFI capable. Boot into your BIOS screen, the button that let you select What to Boot, if u see UEFI you are good to go here, then go to 2. If no UEFI go to your Mobo's website and see, pray they have a BIOS update. Before BIOS update, this is dangerous, read procedure fully, and have irreplaceable data backed up. Am not responsible.

2. Now you must reformat your HD to GPT formatting. In order to do that, unfortunately you have to start from scratch, so backup everything, then re-install Windows from scratch, then restore data. Yup, this is lots of work. U can save yourself some work if you can image your drive to another drive, there are several utils that does this, I like Macrium even though is not free, but is straightforward and has friendly interface. Then u can restore image without going through the whole pain of re-installing Windows from Scratch and reconfigure your custom settings, re-install Apps etc.

 

[USAFRet]

1. Since that 3TB is a secondary drive, it was never limited to only 2TB.
That limitation was for the boot drive.

2. Currently, that drive is reading as 2.479TB. That is only a little less than the 2.793TB that a "3TB drive" should read as.
That is NOT reading as a 2TB drive (1.81TB).
I don't know what tool you used to artificially limit that, but that is more than a 2TB space would read.

You're missing out on ~300GB. 10%. Personally, I'd leave it until the next time you do a full install or want to use this drive in a different system.

3. Disk 1, your C drive.
That is a 60GB SSD maybe? You're not leaving enough free space on it. 5% is not enough.

 

[dan25harris]

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate all the feedback.

I'll definitely try the BIOS update option, and see where I get, if not I'll leave it.

Yes, the 60gb is an SSD boot drive, I'm switching it out for a 240gb one as I'm upgrading other drives for games etc.

Is it normally 10% you're meant to leave on the drive? I thought they automatically had partitions for this hence the formatted space being lower?

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks for the replies guys, I appreciate all the feedback.

I'll definitely try the BIOS update option, and see where I get, if not I'll leave it.

Yes, the 60gb is an SSD boot drive, I'm switching it out for a 240gb one as I'm upgrading other drives for games etc.

Is it normally 10% you're meant to leave on the drive? I thought they automatically had partitions for this hence the formatted space being lower?

It's generally recommended to leave 15-20% on an SSD.
That 55GB you see is NOT the overprovisioning. Rather, that is the standard reading for an advertised 60GB drive.

Just like you'd see 1.81TB for a "2TB drive".