DiskPart "list disk" showing 2TB for my new 3TB HDD

jcsarawak9245

Hey guys,

Need a hand with a weird capacity issue. I just installed a new Seagate IronWolf 3TB HDD (connected via SATA), but when I went into DiskPart to get it initialized and partitioned, list disk only shows a total size of 2048 GB.

I've already tried swapping SATA ports and rescanning, but it won't budge. Is there a DiskPart trick to fix this, or did I get a dud drive?

Xanthus

jcsarawak9245 It's the MBR 2TB limit. Try this DiskPart command sequence:

diskpart
select disk X (replace X with your disk number)
clean
convert gpt

The clean command wipes the disk, then convert gpt switches it to GPT format, which supports the full 3TB.

After that, you can create your partitions normally.

MattJosel

You're spot on about the MBR limit. It's easy to fix this in Disk Management. Just open it up and find your 3TB drive in the list, right click the left box where it says "Disk [X]". The area with the disk number, not the colored volume bar, and select "Convert to GPT Disk."

If the option is greyed out, it's because there's already a partition on there; just right click the 2048GB volume, select "Delete Volume" to make it all unallocated, and then the conversion option will be available. Once you've converted it to GPT, the full 3TB will show up immediately and you can format it as

one big drive.