Is Win8 better at using 3TB HDD than Win7?

[Vollezar]

I bought a 3TB drive. And tried installing win7 64Bit on it through various methods. Nothing worked that would allow me to use the drive as a single, bootable 3TB partition.
I am wondering if anyone knows whether Win 8 would be better at handling this drives? I ask because it will the decision maker for me.
Thanks.

 

[SNGX1275]

I don't have a 'good' answer, meaning, I don't know for sure, so take of that what you will...

I think, it makes no difference. I think the deal with 3TB drives and larger is a 'bios' issue, not an OS issue. So a new motherboard with EFI will be fine with a 3TB boot drive. Hope that helps.. if not, well post again

 

[Vollezar]

Yup the BIOS compatibility is important. But even if it's compatible Windows 7 might not be able to boot from the drive. My board is compatible with 3TB drives. and the installation starts fine but then it just fails to work. The only way Windows 7 recognizes the whole 3TB is by initializing the drive as GPT partition. I wonder if Windows 8 will be able to recognize 3TB without having BIOS force it to recognize as such.

 

[alexe3831]

I was able to install Windows 8 on a 3TB drive without any problems from the BIOS, but I wont promise it will work for you as well, because every BIOS is different depending on what version it is, and the manufacturer.

Hope this helps somewhat

 

[Vollezar]

Thanks. My BIOS does support it. So I will hope it works.Hopefully I can get around to doing it this week.

 

[alexe3831]

Glad to hear it, hope you the best. Any other problems with windows 8 let me know, ive been testing it since it was released to beta.

 

[Vollezar]

Thanks.

 

[Vollezar]

Didn't work out. It is the BIOS issue. It would let me boot USB in EFI and the installation works fine, but it does not give me a choice of booting the hard drive in EFI. Didn't think of checking for that because I thought since it boots USB in EFI and creates EFI boot partition on the HDD it would automatically boot the HDD in EFI. Nope. Oh well. I guess I'll stick with my old drive as a boot drive, for now. Like the new OS, BTW.

 

[FrizzleFry]

You have to use a GPT partition for sizes over 2GB (instead of MBR). You could create the partition by connecting the drive to an existing windows 7 system and using disk management, right-click on the drive box for that drive on the left and there should be an option to do so. Or you can boot from your windows installation disk into a command console and do it using DISKPART.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc738416(v=ws.10).aspx
Of course there is no guarantee that your BIOS can handle it if its old.
There are also usually utilities supplied with new disks for doing such things.

 

[Vollezar]

Thanks. I know that. I've been using it as GPT. But you can't use it as boot without the EFI. Windows * seems to be able to create an EFI boot partition on it's own, but the BIOS on my board (I do have an UEFI Bios (ASRock board)) won't let me for some reason boot HDD in EFI. Just some of the USB keys I have. I made a decision to get a better board next month (hopefully) and going to make sure that one's BIOS will do the job right.

 

[Jad Chaar]

Did you create a new partition during the installation? that may help

 

[Vollezar]

The first time I tried installing that's what I did. It's okay now, I guess. I am just going to wait till I get a better board. I'll have to reinstal then anyway.

 

[Vollezar]

I finally got it working. Only because I got a different motherboard though. This time I made sure that the BIOS on this one supported the efi booting for the harddrive as well as USB sticks. Been using it all day and it's working just fine.