Dell XPS 9100 Does not Recognize New 3 TB Internal Hard Drive

The BIOS in the XPS 9100 should have no trouble recognizing a 3 TB hard drive.  In order to get Windows 7 to recognize it, you need to update to the most recent version of the Intel Rapid Storage Technology application available on the Intel site.  Versions of the AHCI drivers older than about a year cannot recognize a 3 TB drive.

Once you have the new drivers installed you should wipe the disk and format it again using the GPT partitioning scheme.  The Master Boot Record method of partitioning cannot handle a 3 TB hard drive unless you increase the size of the allocation units to reduce the number of sectors that the MBR must keep track of.  Using GPT will accomplish that without the need to adjust the size of the sectors.

One last thing; Windows will not boot from a GPT partitioned drive unless your computer has a UEFI BIOS.  The XPS 9100 is just a bit too old to have one of those, so you will need to use your 3 TB drive for data storage only.

I have searched the Intel driver site for drivers compatible with the ICH10R SATA AHCI controller. The latest version is 10.0.0.1046 dated 9/13/2010, which is not late enough to recognize a 3 TB drive. I have tried later drivers not specifically assocated with this AHCI controller, and they did not function; or at least GPT partitioning did not work to make it recognizable. KS

Did you try this one?  Intel RST ver 11.2.0.1006

In a worst case scenario, you can use a $15 SATA card like the Syba 150R I have in my old Dimension 2350 (and which works well with a 3tb Hitachi).

I'm not sure why it doesn't show up in the BIOS, though.

Thank you. I downloaded the driver and successfully installed it. After rebooting I went to Seagate Disk Wizzard where I initialized it in GPT layout. Rebooted and  . . . no drive. [:>

I think I will try your idea of a SATA card. This hopefully will come with card-specific drivers that will be more current.

Kent

Which file did you install?  You should have used either iata_enu.exe or iata_cd.exe.  The first is an english only version, while the second has alternate language files.  If you used one of the two smaller files, all that happens is that the autoextractor expands the contents of the files to a folder and stops.  These small files are intended to make the driver available for loading to an external storage device so that they can be loaded during Windows setup.  The first two I mentioned install the drivers as well as the RST console that allows you to manage your hard drives.

The Syba 150R uses the common Silicon Image SI3112 chipset -- I think the drivers are present on the Windows install disc.

Installed Vantec SATA 6G PCIe card and latest driver 1.2.6.0 dated 5/4/2011 rebooted . . . everything went super! Connected SATA cable from Vantec card to 3 TB Seagate drive. Rebooted. No drive registered on "Computer" list of hard drives. Ran Seagate Disk Wizzard to initialize drive using GPT layout. Went fine. No drive registered. Rebooted no drive registered. The drive does not even show up in F12 Set now - it is totally undetected. But the drive is seen and is working fine in Seagate Tools for Windows and Seagate Disk Wizzard for that matter so it is getting power and the SATA connection is working fine. It simply does not want to see it somewhere so as to make it a usable drive.

What a cheesewagon!

Kent

For anyone digging up this old issue..

I just installed a new Western Digital Caviar Black 4TB drive into a Studio 9100.  I had to download the latest "AHCI: Intel Rapid Storage Technology Driver for Intel Desktop Boards" from Intel's site.  Specifically, I used: STOR_Win7_8_11.7.0.1013_PV.exe.  I used the 11.81MB download.  The smaller download will let your system see the drive, but you lose the Intel IAstorUI GUI (it will crash every time you try to launch it).

Initializing the drive as GPT now shows the proper capacity in Microsoft's "Disk Management" MMC plugin.

But the drive is seen and is working fine in Seagate Tools for Windows and Seagate Disk Wizzard for that matter so it is getting power and the SATA connection is working fine. It simply does not want to see it somewhere so as to make it a usable drive.

You shouldn't have to use any proprietary tools to have the drive registered, just Disk Manager.

I installed a brand new, unpartitioned Hitachi 3tb in my old 2350, opened Windows Disk Manager, and was prompted to partition and format the drive. All 3tb was recognized.

The SATA card was an old Syba 150R that had had its BIOS flashed in 2005, long before large hard drives became available.

That may be true of the SATA card you were using, but the Studio 9100 absolutely needs new Intel ICH10R drivers to see the whole capacity.  My Studio 9100 is one of the last that were sold by Dell.  Even so, the drive should appear, albeit at a lesser capacity without the drivers.  It's possible that BIOS might not be set to "Automatic" for the previously unused drive slots.  I've seen that before with other Dell models, particularly the Precision desktops.

I think the OP added a third party SATA card.

Note: I had the same >2TB recognition issue with my Studio XPS9100 as well. I found that I did need to get the latest  Intel ICH10R drivers to fix this issue. However, I also found that this latest driver caused issues when I try to put my computer into Sleep mode. The computer will go to sleep but it won't wake up. you then have to power down and power back up. What's odd is that when you power back up, you are restored to the state of your machine as it was! Really odd. For now, I have only 2 options. Either get a newer and more modern internal SATA card and hook my internal drives up to it and then downgrade the Intel ICH10R AHCI drivers back to what they were before OR just keep the drivers I have now and never let my computer go to sleep mode. If I want to save power, I will need to shut the computer of when I am not using it for extended periods of time. If anyone else has any ideas, I am all ears!

Yea, the updated driver has some serious issues with power saving.  I have the same sleep behavior.  Hibernate is even worse.  Many times it will blue screen complaining about the driver and the power mode.  I looked at some of the crash dumps, and it is the ICH10R driver.  I haven't found a solution for it.  Intel has hidden most of its information about the RST stuff, and the download page is broken, and shows the same version I already have installed.  Dell doesn't appear to have any updates at all.  

I came up with a work-around.  My system sleeps and wakes as it did before, without reverting the newer drivers.  If you try it, create a restore point first and backup anything important.

I'm using Win7 x64.  The XPS's drive controller is the ICH10R with the following hardware ID:

PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_3A22&SUBSYS_04821028&REV_00

I started with Intel's 11.7.0.1013 driver.  This is the last version I found that supported the ICH10R.

Next up, Google showed me where Intel hid the newer driver:

downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx

Grab these two:

f6flpy-x64.zip

SetupRST.exe

I installed SetupRST.exe first.

Expand f6flpy-x64.zip.

Windows will not accept these drivers because the hardware IDs it's looking for aren't listed.  I've had luck with other hardware by adding the hardware ID to the drivers' inf file, but that didn't work.  

Use a "Run as Administrator" command line to go to c:\windows\system32\drivers.  Rename your existing iaStorA.sys and iaStorF.sys files.  Copy in the new ones from the unzipped f6flpy-x64.zip.

Reboot.

The system boots normally.  If you go to Device Manager, "IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers" and look at the ICH10R, it still shows the 11.7.0.1013 driver.  If you look at "Driver Details", it lists the new version ID for both sys files.  Also notice that the two files are not digitally signed.  The mismatched version info and signing appear to be the only pitfalls with this work-around.

I think Intel just got lazy and dropped the older controllers, even though the drivers (so far) appear to work just fine.  SetupRST.exe provides a UI for the new drivers, so that works too.

It may may be possible to hack the f6flpy-x64.zip files to get it to install properly, but unless there's trouble just copying the files manually, it's probably not worth the effort.