Hard Drive installation

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Friedpet

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Hey

I've just installed a 2tb SATA hard drive alongside a 500gb. Windows doesn't pick up the hard drive, although I can see the disk in my bios. I can see the drive in my Device Manager.

Any help regarding this?
 
Windows can't see 2Tb. You'll have to create 2x partitions if you want to use the full 2Tb though.

Right-click on the disk, create a new partition, 1Tb size.

Repeat for the 2nd partition.

Span the two (RAID0) if you really want a single partition instead of two partitions.
 
right click on "My Computer"
click Manage
Go to Disk Management on the left hand side
then you need to format the disk and assign a drive path

this is what I remember although havent done it in a long time.
 
Yeah that is the way to do it. Especially if it is a brand new HDD, then you need to first assign a drive letter and format it. Once done it will work.

D3x! said:
right click on "My Computer"
click Manage
Go to Disk Management on the left hand side
then you need to format the disk and assign a drive path

this is what I remember although havent done it in a long time.
Click to expand...
 
You'll have to use GPT if the partition size is larger than 2TB, otherwise stick with MBR.
 
Choose MBR because you'd only want GPT if you're installing Windows to a drive larger than 2TB. Windows is only restricted to 2.2TB drives for MBR because BIOS settings won't allow a boot drive larger than that size.

This setting doesn't affect you. Stick to MBR.
 
Check if your drive use internal 4K sector size. WD calls it "Advanced Format". If so, use disk partitioning sotware for proper sector alignment. Otherwise performance suffer. It could be utility from manufacturer Web site or third-party.
 
I'm not sure why its going to be a big difference from 512KB to 4096KB sector sizes as all the data is still addressed in 512KB sectors anyway. Its only going to matter for smaller file sizes, so a media drive using 4096KB sectors won't feel any different from a drive with 512KB sectors. 4096K will be better when the drive is nearly full, though.

For boot drives, however, 4096KB sectors are a must and have to be done before the OS is installed, especially where people who are going to use dual boots are concerned.
 
Last edited:
4MB sectors for a boot drive?! You're mad, unless you meant 4KB sectors ;) which I know you did.
 
Pada said:
4MB sectors for a boot drive?! You're mad, unless you meant 4KB sectors ;) which I know you did.
Click to expand...

You know what? **** this headache. I'm going to shoot an arrow through my head and see if that helps. Knees don't feel anything anyhow.
 
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