4tb hardrive, can only partition 2tb. the other 2 are unable to be interacted with.

Question

I am doing a clean install on everything right now. This is a problem that I noticed a long time ago, just never wanted to deal with it. My HDD all of a sudden (again a long time ago) decided to not allow me to utilize the entire space that it had. I want to know how I can fix this because I want to utilize the rest of the HDD space that I have available. Even when I right-click, the only option that I can click on is the Properties and Help. Which isn't helping at this moment.

Answer 1

Hi ArvisDren,

I am Dave, I will help you with this.

That problem is because the drive has an MBR Partition Style and that only supports up to 2TB, it does not support a 4TB drive.

To resolve that, you would need to convert that drive to a GPT partition style.

These are the steps to resolve this, but please note, the drive needs to be empty to convert it, because all data on that drive will be deleted and non-recooverable.

Open Command Prompt by right clicking its icon and select 'Run as Administrator'.

Run this command and hit Enter:

diskpart

Run this command and hit Enter:

list disk

(Make note of the disk number you want to convert and enter it into the next command - replace X)

Run this command and hit Enter:

select disk X

Run this command and hit Enter:

clean

Run this command and hit Enter:

convert gpt

Then close Command Prompt.

You can then create your partition(s) on that drive in Disk Management.

Answer 2

Hello ArvisDren,

I will help you learn why ,

MBR can limit partition to approximately 2.2 TB

And

GPT can reach a theoretical limit of 9.4 ZB (9.4 billion terabytes)

information :

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/backup-and-storage/support-for-hard-disks-exceeding-2-tb#initialize-a-data-disk-by-using-gpt