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XPS 8930 SE, can't see entire 4TB WD drive I just installed
I am trying to upgrade the 2TB data drive that came with my 8930 in 2018 with a 4TB WD drive I have purchased. (My unit boots from a 256GB M.2 drive running Windows 10).
I put the 4TB in an external USB enclosure and was able to format and work with all 4TB in the drive, no problem.
But now that I've swapped it in the chassis with the 2TB drive that was there before, Windows seems confused.
In the Disk Manager, it can see all 4TB, but insists that only part of the disk is formatted (2TB only). It won't let me assign a drive letter to it. It won't even let me reformat the drive, or format the remaining "unused" part of the partition it thinks is there. I can't do anything with it.
If I boot into the BIOS, the BIOS sees the entire 4TB drive, no problem. But Windows doesn't.
Any suggestions are appreciated. I see some similar but not identical issues in this forum. Thank you.
Vic384
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February 24th, 2020 12:00
In Disk Management, in the Graphical View of the 4TB disk you should be able to right-click the area to the left where it says Disk 1 (assuming Disk 1 is the 4TB disk) and select 'Properties'. In the Properties windows, click on the 'Volumes' tab and make sure the Partition style is GUID Partition Table (GPT). If not, and there is no data you wish to keep on the disk, then you should re-initialize the disk using DiskPart and the following procedure:https://macrorit.com/partition-magic-manager/initialize-disk-gpt-mbr-from-cmd-diskpart.html
When using DiskPart make sure you identify the 4TB disk using the 'list disk' command and use the 'select disk' command to select it. Selecting the wrong disk will cause you to lose your boot disk.
If you wish to try to work around with your current 4TB disk, you need to extend the 2TB partition into the unallocated space or create a new volume in the unallocated space. You cannot format unused or unallocated space without first creating a volume. You should be able to assign a drive letter by right-clicking on the 2TB partition and selecting 'Change Drive Letter and Paths...'. To extend the 2TB partition you can right-click the 2TB partition and select 'Extend Volume'. To create a new volume, you should right-click on the unallocated space and select 'New Simple Volume'.
PhilObbard
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February 24th, 2020 17:00
Thank you. diskpart did it - all I had to do was "clean" with diskpart, and then Windows Disk Management did the formatting just fine. Didn't even need a reboot. Thanks again!