My apologies in advance for this long post but I want to get as much info out to reduce ping-ponging.
Purchased a 4TB WD Green to use inside my desktop PC as additional storage. I also got a 7-7pin SATA III cable and a Molex power adapter to match how the current HD (640GB WD Blue) is connected.
Installation was straightforward but when I went to set it up in Win 7 64-bit, it only shows up as a 2TB HD no matter which mode I tried (MBR or GPT). From my reading of the WD website instructions it should be either 1 4TB partition (GPT) or 2 2TB partitions(MBR).
Puzzled I then rebooted and went into the motherboard firmware to see what it was getting and it too was also just 2TB. My diagnosis is that the motherboard can’t work with a HD greater than 2TB which is not surprising as it’s a 6 year old PC. Unfortunately, there is no BIOS update available, but I still want to keep this HD and keep it internal.
Now I do know that my PC can see a HD greater than 2TB because I have an external 3TB HD (used for backing up this and 3 other PCs at home) that I connect using a USB connection. My PC also has a USB 3 add-on card that has an internal connector and a direct connection to the PC power supply. My thinking is that there must be a USB 3 to SATA III adapter that’s available. In my searching, the only item that I’ve found that might work is the “SABRENT USB 3.0 TO SATA/IDE 2.5/3.5/5.25-INCH Hard Drive Converter With Power Supply & LED Activity Lights [4TB Support] (USB-DSC9)”. It probably is overkill as the USB cable part of this adapter is 27" long and also comes with a power adapter that I won’t need as the HD is already getting power from the PC power supply via the 4-pin Molex.
My question is if there is a short USB 3 adapter that I can connect with the SATA III cable that I got with this new HD?
Edit: Would adding a SATA card (e.g., IO Crest 2 Port SATA III PCI-Express x1 Card (SY-PEX40039) overcome the 2TB MoBo limit?
