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Shutey

7 Posts

115047

October 14th, 2011 07:00

Adding 3TB SATA3 Drive to XPS 8300

I have a XPS 8300 i7 64bit Windows 7 Home - four weeks old. I have bought a Western Digital Green Caviar 3TB Sata3 hard drive to be a secondary drive. Installed it on SATA port 1 - set it to GPT but it is only recognised as a 750GB drive. I understood that all new systems now supported the UEFI standards allowing machines to see 3TB.

Can anyone suggest what the problem is or what the solution might be?

speedstep

9 Legend

 • 

47K Posts

October 14th, 2011 07:00

The AHCI drivers need to be updated and the bios might need an update.

The latest Intel Rapid storage drivers will likely fix this issue.

6/8/2011

10.​​6.​​0.​​1002

Latest

Drivers

6/8/2011

10.​​6.​​0.​​1022

Latest

Drivers

 

Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology is designed to provide 
functionality for the following Storage Controllers:
    RAID Controllers:
    - Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller
    - Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA RAID Controller  
    - Intel(R) ICH7MDH SATA RAID Controller
    - Intel(R) ICH7R/DH SATA RAID Controller   
       
    AHCI Controllers:
    - Intel(R) Desktop/Workstation/Server Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) Mobile Express Chipset SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) 5 Series/3400 Series SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) 5 Series 4 Port SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) 5 Series 6 Port SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) ICH10D/DO SATA AHCI Controller 
    - Intel(R) ICH10R SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) EP80579 SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) ICH9M-E/M SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) ICH9R/DO/DH SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) ICH7M/MDH SATA AHCI Controller
    - Intel(R) ICH7R/DH SATA AHCI Controller

muto

872 Posts

October 14th, 2011 09:00

.

speedstep

9 Legend

 • 

47K Posts

October 14th, 2011 10:00

Booting from a 3TB partition definitely depends on the UEFI bios or not.

Support for Disk Drives Beyond 2.2 TeraBytes (TB) and 4K Advanced Format Sectors [218619]

Most legacy systems built before 2011 have a traditional PC BIOS. This type of BIOS uses a Master Boot Record (MBR). The MBR Partitions can define a disk drive capacity up to 2.2TB. Windows operating systems that boot from an MBR are therefore limited to 2.2TB per MBR. A 3TB disk drive in a legacy BIOS and Window system will need a DiscWizard device driver to access the full capacity of a 3TB disk drive. Two partitions will be necessary because of the MBR limitation. The device driver mounts the capacity above 2.2TB with another MBR which looks to the system as a second virtual “physical” device.

GUID Partition Tables (GPT) can define drives larger than 2.2TB. You can use GPT today on any Windows 7 and Vista system as a non-booting data drive. Windows can only boot a GPT partition on a new type of BIOS called UEFI.

UEFI BIOS desktop systems are new since 2011. Windows 7 64-bit and Vista 64-bit operating systems support booting from UEFI and GPT without the need of a non-Microsoft device driver. This is the Windows native solution for booting a 3TB drive to a single partition.

Quick facts about Windows and 3TB drives:

  • Windows 7 and Vista support GPT 3TB single partitions
  • Windows 7 and Vista can only boot GPT on systems with UEFI BIOS
  • Windows 7 and Vista can mount a GPT non-booting data drive
  • Intel RST device drivers before v10.1 do not support 3TB disk drives
  • Windows systems with Legacy BIOS and MBR boot drives are limited to 2.2TB partitions
  • Windows XP does not support GPT
  • Windows XP sees a 3TB drive as 800GB on boot or data drives
  • DiscWizard software can install a device driver which opens the full capacity of a 3TB. You can use it to create a second partition for the capacity above 2.2TB

DiscWizard v13 with support for 3TB drives is now available.

Shutey

7 Posts

October 14th, 2011 11:00

Speedstep you are a star

Downloaded the Intel drivers and it worked

Thank you

monkeybutler

2 Posts

December 22nd, 2011 19:00

Without upgrading the BIOS - what is the largest HDD that could be recognized by factory defaulted Dell XPS 8300?  I ask, because I get different answers depending on which Dell rep I get.

Thanks in advance.

rdunnill

6 Professor

 • 

8.8K Posts

December 22nd, 2011 23:00

It should work with anything currently available. (I believe 3tb is the largest drive commonly available.)  

monkeybutler

2 Posts

December 24th, 2011 08:00

According to Dell sales support team - They highest capacity 'factory installed' HDD supported by Dell (on the XPS 8300) is a 1TB.  Although I could install my own and update the drivers as mentioned above...I don't want to do that on a brand new PC.

Seems I get more and more disappointed with Dell everyday.... :(

rdunnill

6 Professor

 • 

8.8K Posts

December 24th, 2011 10:00

It's easy to swap in a new hard drive -- 1tb may be the largest size officially supported, but I doubt a BIOS updated is needed to use something larger.

lg1382

6 Posts

September 16th, 2014 10:00

Is it possible to image a 3TB hard drive from a Recovery Image? Cloning is not an option for me as my original 2TB hard drive died. The image would likely use an MBR system. I have completed the imaging process on the new 3TB drive, but going into Disk Part from the Recovery Console only shows 746GB as the disk size, and when attempting to boot from the 3TB drive, I get blue-screen-of-death.


Please advise... Dell Support and Windows support seem entirely clueless... it's been a sad and frustrating experience all around with them. I'm just trying to get my machine back online.

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