Can't format new 3 TB Black > 800 GB

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

I just bought a new internal 3 TB Black HD, and attached it via a USB cable to my Mid-2007 iMac, and tried to format it… however, after formatting it with the iMac disk utility, it only formats to 800 GB, instead of 3 TB.

Is there some limitation with the OS X disk utility to format a 3 TB HD?  

Is there a 3rd party utility that would do the job?

Is it because my iMac is an older model?

I am using OS X Yosemite.  

I would like to use this new 3 TB drive to replace my Internal 500 GB HD, but need to format it and clone my current HD to this new 3 TB HD

2

hi Pauleduc,

It is possible that you have come across a limitation of your system. You may want to check your specific model with Apple and see what size of hard drives it can support. It shouldn’t have to do with the utility that you are using to format the disk. Disk Utility should do the job fine, just make sure that you are formatting it with HFS and you have it set is GPT/GUID partition table instead of FAT/MBR.