Resolved Max Drive size with Windows 7

Dingus · 2013/12/29

Hi folks.
I am one of the reluctant that is changing from XP to Windows 7.
As my VERY old c: drive is so small I decided to replace it with a much larger one. A 4TB one. Having read about what W7 can handle.

Now here comes the problem.
I changed the drive from MBR to GPT prior to loading W7, so I will have the full use of the 4TB. However, after the install my drive is back to MBR, which only gives the use of 2TB.
Everything that I know to change to GPT fails after W7 is loaded.
I've tried using diskmgmt by right clicking on the drive, but that is greyed out.

Can anyone help?

TonyT · 2013/12/29

Reinstall, but delete the existing partition.

During the install, create a partition of about 100-200 GB. Install Win 7 there. Leave the rest of the space unallocated.

Later, use Disk Mgmt to create additional partitions for your data, e.g. documents, multimedia, etc.

SpywareDr · 2013/12/29

1) A GPT disk uses the GUID partition table (GPT) disk partitioning system. It can be used as a boot volume on x64-based (64-bit) editions of Windows 7, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008.

2) Windows only supports booting from a GPT disk on systems that contain Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) boot firmware.

3) You can convert only empty, unpartitioned disks (raw drives or empty MBR drives) to the GPT format. To convert a volume that contains data, you must first manually delete the partition.

More info here: Using GPT Drives

Dingus · 2013/12/29

Thanks Spy.
Found this out from reading many Internet posts.
I need to find out is I can upgrade my BIOS to see if this helps.

SpywareDr · 2013/12/30

Is it possible to update BIOS to UEFI?

It's theoretically possible, and may be semi-practical on some computers. What you'd need to do is to merge CoreBoot with a TianoCore UEFI payload. I've never tried it, but I've heard of this being done. Computer manufacturers could of course do this or something similar themselves, although I don't expect many will do so. Aside from the simple technical knowledge required to do this, the major obstacle is one of the size of the EEPROM chips on most motherboards. UEFI is pretty big, and although I don't know the details offhand, my understanding is that it's big enough that motherboard manufacturers wanting to support UEFI have had to increase the size of their EEPROMs to hold UEFI implementations. Thus, such an upgrade would work only on computers that had unusually large EEPROMs to begin with, or on computers on which you could swap out the EEPROM for a bigger one.

Another approach is to put TianoCore UEFI on your hard disk and boot it like a boot loader or OS. This is possible with a TianoCore build called DUET, which I wrote about here. This works only on some computers and is awkward to get running. I also don't know offhand if it supports Secure Boot. Even if it did, Secure Boot on such a configuration would be rather pointless, since it would still rely on a BIOS-mode boot loader to get started, so malware could theoretically still creep in though that unsecured foundation. (OTOH, I'm a bit skeptical that malware would survive the odd journey from BIOS through DUET to a booted OS.)

answered Nov 6 '12 at 23:30
Rod Smith

-------

It's definitely possible, and has been done.

MSI clickbios.

It's supposed to be a bit buggy, but functional nevertheless.

answered Oct 29 at 20:08
Milind R
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Resolved Max Drive size with Windows 7

Dingus Well-Known Member Thread Starter

TonyT SuperGeek Staff

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Resolved Max Drive size with Windows 7

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