WD 3TB USB 3 MY Book Drive - overcoming 2TB limits - MBR/GPT - unanswered questions

i’ve one of these drives attached to a Win 7 64bit machine.

I’ve seen another thread that talks about the mechanism by which the enclosure essentially tricks the OS (windows XP) into recognizing the 3TB disk as one partition, though in reality it is a 2TB partition and a 750GB partition. I’ve also seen a thread that suggests that only the disk type that comes with the enclosure can be used in it - bit of a limitation).

However, my question is this: supposing the enclosure breaks after the 2yr warranty has run out. Obviously i’d have to take the drive out, but if i stick it in my machine direct to a sata port won’t i have lost all my data because only the enclosure can handle the conversion?

Assuming this might become an issue, can i get around this now by deleting the partitions and formatting  them as one (GPT type) using my win 7 64 bit machine (assuming i don’t need the drive to work on XP), before i start putting data on it? …ie. so that i could take the drive out and put it natively on a sata port or in another enclosure at a later date and not lose the data? What if i wanted to take the drive out of the enclosure and do this formatting, then if i wanted to put it back in the enclosure, would it still work?

What about if/when the drive breaks. How does recovery software cope with the two partitions versus one with GPT?

And i did see mentioned in a thread that if you take the drive as is, out of the enclosure and put it direct to a sata port that you’d need to format it before you could use it (ie. you’d lose your data). Can anyone else confirm that?

Basically, i won’t be backing this stuff up (it’s too darn big) so i need to know that i’ve the best chance of getting my data off myself if anything goes wrong.

thanks

asianhawk wrote:

However, my question is this: supposing the enclosure breaks after the 2yr warranty has run out. Obviously i’d have to take the drive out, but if i stick it in my machine direct to a sata port won’t i have lost all my data because only the enclosure can handle the conversion?

Only if you don’t have a backup. Be smart, don’t leave all your data on one place.

asianhawk wrote:

Assuming this might become an issue, can i get around this now by deleting the partitions and formatting  them as one (GPT type) using my win 7 64 bit machine (assuming i don’t need the drive to work on XP), before i start putting data on it? …ie. so that i could take the drive out and put it natively on a sata port or in another enclosure at a later date and not lose the data? What if i wanted to take the drive out of the enclosure and do this formatting, then if i wanted to put it back in the enclosure, would it still work?

Not going to work unless your MoBo natively supports 3TB drives when used internally if you take the drive out you void the warranty and then there’s no way to tell if it will work again on the case due to its firmware.

thanks.

too many unknowns on these 3TB drives for me. I also found that my video editing software couldn’t write to them, so the drive went back. I’m looking for a simple 2TB one now and will buy 3tb internal drives at a later date and stick in my own enclosure.

You want an Elements then it’s simple plug and play no software.

Joe

yeah i have one of those 2TB elements and its pretty nice, but i want USB 3 now, so its either 2TB My Book or My Book Essentials.

I’m not clear on which of these can have the drives popped out of them and into an internal sata port though (which is comfort that i need for data access) (all issues of warranty asside). Which if any of them have any encryption built in (or with the essentials, is it only once you install the software that you can no longer whip the drive out onto another sata port? Any ideas?

Any of the drives that come with Smartware use the hardware encryption.

Joe