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I recently purchased a 4TB hard drive. This is my first time working with disks larger than 1TB.

From what I discovered through googling, I found that I have to initialize the disc using GUID Partition Table (GPT), instead of MBR. I did that when I first plugging the drive in.

The problem is that Windows 7 only sees about 1.5TB on it. I thought it might show me more once formatted, but it did not. So I deleted the volume hoping that would reveal more options in the disk management tool, but it did not. Here's what I'm left with:

1677.90GB Unallocated HDD

How can I get Windows 7 to recognize all 4TB of the drive?


I can't seem to find a definitive answer on whether it could be my motherboard that is having trouble with this. Also, I'm actually using a board I took from an old external usb drive to connect the drive to the computer. So if these boards can be limited, I suppose it could possibly be the reason. How would I be able to tell?

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  • Check your board supports UEFI. Did the hard drive come with a disc? Many computers struggle to see hard drives larger than 2TB.
    – EdG
    Nov 1, 2014 at 23:18
  • @EdG It did not come with a disc. It might be the external board. This guy's is from 2013. I think mine is from 2009.
    – user287352
    Nov 1, 2014 at 23:20
  • Are you 64-bit and Win 7 Pro SP1 or above?
    – EdG
    Nov 1, 2014 at 23:22
  • @EdG Yep, all three. 64 bit, Win 7 Pro, SP1.
    – user287352
    Nov 1, 2014 at 23:23
  • This is my MB. Came with the HP computer I'm using. I can't seem to find if it does support UEFI.
    – user287352
    Nov 1, 2014 at 23:25

2 Answers 2

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I was able to fix the problem myself.

Recall from my question that I had the new hard drive connected to the computer via an usb board from an old external hard drive. I circumvented using that and plugged the new drive directly into my mother board. I was able to format the entire 4TB of the drive as expected. Oddly, I took the new drive out and put it back in the old usb board and windows has no problem seeing all 4TB. The board must have just had a problem reporting the unallocated space to Windows. Thanks to the others who answered or commented.


Since July 2015 to March 2020 I've been using a USB 3.0 to SATA Hard Drive Duplicator/Clone Docking Station for 2.5" & 3.5" HDDs. I've yet to use the cloning feature, but I accessing the HDDs is simple. I just slip them in the top slots and connect via USB to the computer. The one I have has an explicit 12TB limit. I've successfully used and allocated fresh 8TB drives many times. One concern I've had is over heating when copying a lot of data that will take many hours. In those instances, I set up an external USB fan to blow on the drives.

The one I have doesn't seem to be available anymore, but there's a lot of options now. This is mine:

Aukey Hard Drive Docking station

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    Be warned: Even though it might now report the size correctly that USB converter might still mess up the drive if stuff is written to the end of the disk. You won't know that until things really go wrong and then all your data on the disk might be corrupted... If you value your data get a decent USB enclosure that supports large disks properly.
    – Tonny
    Nov 2, 2014 at 10:49
  • @Tonny Sound advice. I was thinking the same thing.
    – user287352
    Nov 2, 2014 at 15:53
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I had the same problem when I bought my first 3TB hard drive. Apparently, non-UEFI systems cannot have a main hard drive with more than 2TB. You have two options: Upgrade your motherboard, or go to the HD manufacturer website where they should have a program that will allow you to mount the rest of the hard drive space.

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  • Your second sentence backs up my first comment about UEFI. It should be able to be enabled in the BIOS.
    – EdG
    Nov 1, 2014 at 23:27
  • 2
    Thank you for answering. The problem was the usb board, which I was able to fix.
    – user287352
    Nov 2, 2014 at 0:44
  • Technically: s/non-UEFI/MBR/. Because it works fine on my other partitioning schemes than just GPT (though MBR and GPT are the most common ones in consumer hardware).
    – Hennes
    Nov 2, 2014 at 17:15
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    This doesn't answer the question.
    – AStopher
    Nov 3, 2014 at 0:20
  • Update: apparently the moderator that reviewed my 'not an answer' flag doesn't agree with me.
    – AStopher
    Nov 3, 2014 at 12:17

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