Bought a 2.5TB Caviar Green only 280GB showing on Vista?

Hi all,

As above.

Installed this as a secondary hdd for additional storage space. Bios is up to date and all. Full 2.5tb shows on bios as well.

What am I doing wrong?

Thanks all.

If your boot drive is formatted as MBR instead of GPT, then Vista has the same issue with not being able to use GPT drives greater than 2TB that Win2K and XP do unless you’re using UEFI.

The first question is, are you using the required HBA, or did you connect it directly to the MOBO?

http://www.wdc.com/global/products/features/?id=6&language=1

I have it plugged straight onto my mobo. Which is running my primary sata2 hdd, 1tb that one. So no HBA. I’m sorry the link you provided doesn’t seem to lead anywhere. 

the 2.5tb i’ve setup as GPT.

Thanks for your kind response.

I have it plugged straight onto my mobo. Which is running my primary sata2 hdd, 1tb that one. So no HBA. I’m sorry the link you provided doesn’t seem to lead anywhere. 

Well, actually the link was just leading you to the chart mid-way down, that says if you want to use a >2TB drive under Vista 32 as a secondary drive, it must be connected to the HBA that it comes with… apparently it won’t work properly connected straight to the MOBO SATA ports.

I’m on vista 64 and sata 2 ports. i do understand the the sata 3 platform is backward compatible. which is why i didnt think to use hba. in any case the unit i purchased didnt come with the hba.  

I have managed to resolve my issue. Word to the wise, the drivers that Windows OS suggests to you is the latest is not always the case. 

When 2 nights ago I used the driver update utilities on Vista, the OS said all my drivers were up to date. Lo and behold, when I went to the manufacturer’s website for chipset, bios and so on… They all had updates dated later than the ones that Vista was telling me were the latest. 

I first updated my BIOS, that didn’t do much good. But the chipset update was all it took and my full 2.5tb showed up on my hard drive management window.

Relief.

skipper53 wrote:

I’m on vista 64

Ya, sorry about that… I’d just assumed “Vista” indicated the 32-bit version.

Glad the driver updates sorted things out for you, though.

Thank you for your kind suggestions.

They certainly spurred me.

Yes, the driver updates were a simple yet elusive solution. Darn OS needs to address such update issues more accurately. 

I also struggle to get the drive visible.

Lo and behold, when I went to the manufacturer’s website for chipset, bios and so on…

Where did you pick up the new BIOS/chip update? URL…

/Thanks