WD30EZRX only 2TB accessible

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
1

Hi all,

I’ve bought a 3TB WD Green drive in aid of backing up my WD MyBook Live as I had issues with that and want to copy off data before I play with that. Unfortunately when I plugged in the new drive it only details it to be 2TB capacity on 3 separate computers. 

It is not hardware limitations as I can plug in the original WD 3TB drive out of the MB Live and it shows the full 3TB (on all 3 computers).

I have tried to repartition the drive as GPT on all 3 computers - one running Windows 7, another running Windows Vista and the third via a Voyager Q drive dock connected to a MacBook Pro. I have also tried booting on the PC’s with a Linux rescue USB and it only shows 2TB. 

The drive identifies as being a WDC WD30EZRX-00DC0B0 ATA Device - so it is definitely 3TB and not just a mislabelled drive.

So I’m at the point of giving up… Anyone got any clue why it wont reference the missing 1TB?

2

Hello, try following the steps from the link below, look for “How to initialize a data disk by using GPT”.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2581408

3

Is it 2TB or 2TiB? Can the drive be partitioned as a 2TB drive?

Could it be that you are witnessing the problem in Q(2)?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HDD_Capacity_FAQ.html

4

Thank you both for your assistance - turns out it was a HPA area of 1TB.

I ended up fixing with HDAT2 and guidance for the install process from  http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=16541.0 

Simple fix in the end… now onto the next operation - recovery of data from MB Live drive!

Cheers!