3TB's Partitioned As NTFS With MBR Out There?

[Jerry_Da_Man]

Guys,

Windows 7 Pro SP1 64-Bit with an ASRock P67 PRO3 (B3) MoBo

that has a UEFI BIOS, i5-2500K and Corsair Vengeance 16 Gigs.


My C, D and E partitions are on a 120 GB NTFS SSD with a MBR.

My present STORAGE HDD is a 2TB Toshiba with a MBR.


I recently purchased a Toshiba PH3300U-1I72 3TB to replace the 2TB.


I always Ghost with DOS Bootable CDs I make with custom

Autoexec.bat files I write, never Windows.

I found out from Symantec that Ghost has issues with GPT.


I found a way to make my 3TB FULLY accessible and set as MBR.

It's Acronis True Image, aka Seagates DiskWizard aka WD's version

of DiskWizard. It puts an "Extended Capacity Manager" in the boot

sector so you get one 2.1TB and one 700+GB partition, BOTH MBR.

See: Seagate DiscWizard CloneDisc for drives larger than 3TB_Part-2

The reason that I'm posting this is to get feedback from anyone who

has used these programs to see if the 3TBers work as any other HDD

would or are there any quirks that have come up since partitioning

your 3TB?

Please post to me.

Thanks in advance for your help.

[The_Decryptor Veteran]

How about using an imaging tool that's up to date? Any tool that doesn't support GPT these days isn't one worth using (And if it's still the current release, I'd suggest looking at alternatives because it's a pretty crappy tool then)

Also, you don't need to hard-break your sentences, the software will do that for you.

[+BudMan MVC]

^ agreed.. Time to move to current tools.. What version of ghost are you using? The 11.5 version supports gpt from what I can tell.. That software was really discontinued back in like 2009 wasn't it.

[FiB3R]

Why are you cloning the drive at all, rather than just copying the files over?

[Jerry_Da_Man]

Guys,

I just found this and would like some input before opening the

Toshiba 3TB's box:

Make SURE the 3TB is EMPTY as this will wipe ALL data on the drive

To make a fully accessible 3TB with 4k sector:


1. Boot to desktop.

2. Open "My Computer" in Windows Explorer.

3. Click on the EMPTY 3TB HDD.

4. If the factory made some partitions on it, delete them all.

5. Once it is just one disk, right-click it and click "Format"

6. Select "4096", "NTFS" and "Format".

7. Click OK. Since the 3TB is EMPTY, it should be real quick.

8. It's now ready to be partitioned to your liking up to 2.7 or so

TB's total and is set as MBR.

So, has anyone used these programs or the "4096", "NTFS" and "Format"

method?

Big Al

[JJ_]

Me

no

understand

j00

mon

 

1) remove the toshiba from its enclosure

2) connect it to your pc

3) initialize the drive in disk management and format it

4) copy contents of your 2tb drive to the toshiba drive via 'computer'

5) remove the 2tb drive

6) win

[Torolol]

if HDD (or SSD) have > 2^32 sectors, GPT is the better way to do it.

[+BudMan MVC]

"So, has anyone used these programs or the "4096", "NTFS" and "Format""

Those are defaults dude.. So yeah your C drive your running windows off of is using those.

[riahc3]

Hello,

Guys,

I just found this and would like some input before opening the

Toshiba 3TB's box:

Make SURE the 3TB is EMPTY as this will wipe ALL data on the drive

To make a fully accessible 3TB with 4k sector:

1. Boot to desktop.

2. Open "My Computer" in Windows Explorer.

3. Click on the EMPTY 3TB HDD.

4. If the factory made some partitions on it, delete them all.

5. Once it is just one disk, right-click it and click "Format"

6. Select "4096", "NTFS" and "Format".

7. Click OK. Since the 3TB is EMPTY, it should be real quick.

8. It's now ready to be partitioned to your liking up to 2.7 or so

TB's total and is set as MBR.

So, has anyone used these programs or the "4096", "NTFS" and "Format"

method?

Big Al

BudMan is in a holiday mood and I think you got off easy for posting this.

Ill just leave you with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_boot_record#Overview

MBR partition entries and the MBR boot code used in commercial operating systems, however, are limited to 32 bits. Therefore, the maximum disk size supported on disks using 512-byte sectors (whether real or emulated) by the MBR partitioning scheme (without using non-standard methods) is limited to 2 TB

You change your sector size (excuse me if thats the incorrect term), you'll get a bit more space but its not even worth it.

I (and others) do not understand why in the blue hell do you want to do this? Like Budman said, Ghost supports GPT since Nov 2006.... 7 years is a LONG time in technology so a upgrade software wise would be smart.

You have so much to choose from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_disk_cloning_software

[Bryan R.]

So your whole strategy is based around an outdated ghosting software only because it's what you're used to? Sigh...

[+devHead Subscriber²]

Wait, why aren't you just partitioning your 3 TB drive as a GPT instead of MBR?  Why fiddle with 3rd party software when you can do it from Windows as a drive that large should be?   And finally, what the heck are you partitioning a 120 GB SSD into 3 separate partitions?

 

You're doing some rather odd things with your drives without a good reason.  My 3 TB drive is in 4 partitions, and all of them logical drives (you're limited to 3 and an extended partition with MBR).  If your mobo supports it and your OS supports it, you're better off just using GPT to partition the large drive. 

 

Just my 2 cents.