Windows 8.1 doesn't see full 3TB on WD Red internal drive

WD Internal Drives Desktop & Mobile Drives
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I have a brand-new WD 3TB Red internal drive. When first connected, I made sure to choose GPT as drive type. When using Windows 8.1 Disk Management, maximum available size for this drive is 746.39 GB. I cannot expand the volume, add additional volumes on the same drive or get Windows to recognize full 3TB size.

This is strange since my last identical drive (3TB Red internal) worked fine. Though I formatted and installed that when my system was running under Windows 7, I upgraded to 8,1 and the 3TB drive continued running fine. That drive died recently, however, which is why I"m swapping it out.

How can I get Windows 8.1 to format and use all 3TB as one partition? Remember, the drive is already set for GPT and there have been no hardware of software changes since I had a fully-functioning 3TB drive attached.

2

SOLVED

I believe the culprit was Windows Update, which updated the Intel RST driver. The IRST that plays well with my system is a version 12.X - anything higher than that is incompatible with my hardware. The IRST driver had been rolled back to version 6.X, which was too low to recognize the 3TB drive for what it actually is.

Should plugging in a new HD really be so hard, Microsoft?

3

Hello,

Thank you for sharing the solution to your issue. It may help other users in the future.