Hi I have 4TB My passport it comes with default GPT partitioning which is not recognised by Smart TV . The moment i convert to MBR it start working on TV but the max capacity it used only 2TB. I have seen many forums which talks about advance tools by Vendor or some 3rd party Software which can make a 4TB MBR disk. Please help with same.
What are ways i can have MBR Partition and still use full 4TB capacity. Any help will be much appriciated
Hi,
I have never tried this since a third party application might be needed. Let’s see if a User who has experience can comment on this.
To my knowledge, this is not possible. 2TB is the limitation of MBR partitioning scheme since the day it created. The only way to make full use of the disk storage is use the GPT partition style. Maybe there is some way to make your Smart TV recognize the GPT disk, like install some certain driver or add some attachment.
I am sorry, maybe other users could give the answer.
4TB MBR is possible via 512 Byte Emulation … which WD (and Seagate) did use on external hard drives for a while (i have older 3TB and 4TB WD Elements/My Books which are MBR and old Windows XP 32-bit sees the full capacity fine)
But, WD no longer use 512 Byte Emulation on their hard drives anymore … so, yes, all newer WD drives over 2TB will need to be GPT partitioned
here’s a nitty gritty explaining 512 / 4096 bytes (Advanced Format) and emultation
4TB MBR is possible via 512 Byte Emulation … which WD (and Seagate) did use on external hard drives for a while (i have older 3TB and 4TB WD Elements/My Books which are MBR and old Windows XP 32-bit sees the full capacity fine)
Very nice to know.
I bought an WD Elements 4TB external this week (February 2019!) and if comes with NTFS MBR!
I did a clone that f*** the whole partition (and became RAW for the OS, showed up 2 partitions on MiniTool Partition Wizard and ONE partition on EaseUS Partition Master!)
I had to RESET it to factory format with the WD Quick Formatter TOOL: How to Format an External Drive Using WD Quick Formatter
SEE: windows 8.1 - How can a MBR formatted hard drive exceed 1.81 TiB capacity? - Super User
The problem is that Windows Disk Manager CANNOT handle operations with this kind of ADVANCED FORMAT. So… you need to use WD tools or something like MiniTool Partition Wizard, because the native windows disk manager will not create partitions larger than 2TB…
most probably old stock
Shouldn’t an Advanced Format drive show 512bytes sectors?
My new WD Elements (25A3) shows 4k!!
Also, with WD Align - Powered by Acronis tool, it shows NOT to be Advanced Format! but my old WD elments 2TB shows as Advanced Format! (this one has 512Bytes sectors)
I’m totally confused!
Advanced Format is 4096 bytes sectors … there is also Advanced Format 512 byte Emulation (explained below)
From the link above …Hard drives configured with 4096-byte physical sectors with 512-byte firmware are referred to as Advanced Format 512e, or 512 emulation drives.
and from my post at the top of the thread … 4TB MBR is possible via 512 Byte Emulation … which WD (and Seagate) did use on external hard drives (i have older 3TB and 4TB WD Elements/My Books which are MBR and old Windows XP 32-bit sees the full capacity fine)
Elements Desktops are older and have 512 byte emulation … but i’d suspect the new design WD Desktop hard drives are not (the ones that look like lego bricks)
I’ve read all that you said before… but My WD Elements reports 4k Sectors and is formatted NTFS MBR!! How is that possible? Shouldn’t emulate 512Byte Sectors?
Also, In the box there is NO winXP compatibility… YET, the Format tool from WD formatted it with MBR! Will i have problems in the future? If it’s possible to have 4k sector disks formatted as MBR, why aren’t they all using this approach?
the FIRMWARE is emulating 512 Byte Sectors.
My old 4TB Elements Desktop also has 4096 Bytes (which are Physical Sectors) and is MBR Partitioned.
So, if the external enclosure is damaged, i will never get my data back? this is not good!
Why is the WD Align telling me that my old 2TB drive is AF and the new 4TB is not? This should be the other way around!
It’s better to have a native 4k formatted with GPT and lose compatibility… but it doesn’t matter if i do it in this case, right? the conversion will make everything incompatible if the disk is used out of it’s enclosure…?
if I will buy WD GOLD 14 TB (WD141KRYZ) (POWER BY ULTRASTAR) which support 4096 bytes per sector and use default format 512e can I convert 512e to 4kn by same WD utility or PARTITION MAGIC or GPT formatter?
I know that for same drive WD ULTRASTAR DC HC 530 14 tb is it possible because it write in specification on page 17:
E6 = Interface (512e SATA 6Gb/s)
y = z =
(52 = 512e SAS 12Gb/s)
** 512e models can be converted to 4Kn format and vice versa
Or may be conversion from 512e to 4kn and from 4kn to 512e is possible for all 4096 per claster modern drives?
Due to the native limitation of MBR partition style (maximum disk size is 2TB), it is impossible to make a 4TB MBR disk even with a third-party software.
OH Come On Folks. It’s been possible to format WD Externals 3,4,5+Tbyes for some years now. I’ve got 10 of them, the most recent 4TBs bought from Amazon today and working fine on XP. You have to initialize/format them with the right tools. I have found WD’s quick format works pretty well. Paragon makes an app that allows XP to process GPT & MBR HDD’s. I have used it but still prefer to let WD format the drive as MBR if it’s to be used on XP, I have 7 Pro 64, 10 Pro, Ubuntu, Debian and still somehow XP remains my main workhorse.
The key then is no partition over 2 TBs. Usually i’ll create 3 equal size partitions—and do all of that on Windows 7.
To maintain this comparability with XP, OSX, ext3… WD Externals have a secondary PCB controller card on those HDD’s. Be advised that everything written through that secondary PCB card is encrypted and IF that card goes bad the data will not be retrievable although the drive may still work without it—needing to be completely reformatted and THEN won’t be compatible with XP if over 2TB.
Thanks for this info. I recently needed to put my 4TB WD Elements to use on an old Dell XP machine that I use as a music server, and of course was recognized in device manager, but not by Windows drive management or explorer. I downloaded WD format on a Windows 7 machine, loaded it, pressed the button that said make compatible with XP and in just seconds (on this still new/unused drive) it was plug and play usable on my old XP machine…WOW!
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