3tb drive problem

[johhn]

Hi and thanks for reading this post.

After 3 days of googling, tired and hungry, can someone please please please help me find an answer to this problem

I have a compaq presario cq61 330sa running win 7 starter, with a 2,2 ghz cpu, 3 gigs ram, amd system, and have purchased a 3tb seagate hdd connected via external usb.

It reads 746gb in disc manager initalised as gpt. I have tried the drive in 3 different usb enclosurers but all the same even my xp desktop states 746gb.

Seagate told me to update my intel rst driver, but intel's said it had no drivers compatiable with my system.

I have run windows update and installed everything microsoft has to offer, also installed the latest Amd catalyst control centre which installed the latest drivers for my hardware (I made sure the usb was plugged in and running) but no change in the seagate drive it still reads 746gb.

In disc management the driver for the 3tb drive is still 6.1.7600.16385 (rtm 090713-1255) dated 2006, which has not changed at all from any of the updating.
The hard drive seller stated 3 tb drives only work with ahci bios for booting, they should be fine for usb storage.

Any advice would be very gratefully appreciated.


Thank you. John.

 

[Yamikotai]

What capacity does the drive show up as in BIOS?

Apparently you're not the only one having this problem of getting 746GB on 3TB drives. According to what I could find on Google, it is an issue with the Intel drivers - don't use their auto-update/finder utility, those things rarely work perfectly.
There definitely is a more recent update than 2006.

This is the latest version of the driver. Should work on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems:
http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=Y&DwnldID=21852&ProdId=2101&lang=eng

 

[johhn]

3 tb hdd

Hi. Thanks for the reply

I have tried the file labelled iata_enu.exe but get the message "Your system does not meet the minium requirements" then the installer ends. I tried the drivers by themselves but was given a list of devices to apply it to. Since i did not know the exact name of the sata ahci controller i guessed twice, both times the pc crashed and i had to use system restore to boot back in. When i get back home from work i will put up the list of controllers perhaps someone knows which one it is for the compaq presario cq61 330sa.
If a single 3 tb partition is not possible would it be possible to create 2x1.5tb partitions, the drive is just for usb storage so i just need to access the space. I mean there are people who have xp and can do this so should be possible for win 7.

Thank you. John.

 

[Yamikotai]

Hi. Thanks for the reply

I have tried the file labelled iata_enu.exe

Sorry, I should've checked but you need to download one of the first two zip files - the one with x64 if you have a 64-bit OS, or the one with x86 if you have a 32-bit OS.
Then unzip it, and (according to the Readme) copy the files to here:

\Program Files\Intel\Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology

 

[johhn]

3 tb

Hi. Thanks for the reply.

I found an empty folder in crograms files:intel so i created a new folder inside it and named it Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology. Then unzipped the zip file x86 into this new folder, but not sure what to do next as in disc management the 3tb drive still reads version 6 driver and 746gb.

I right clicked on 3tb drive in disc management>properties>update driver >browse my computer for driver software>browse to Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology folder>next>i get the message "windows has determined the driver software for your device is up to date"

But if i do not click on "next" and instead click "let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer">next>have disk>then i browse to the Intel(R) Rapid Storage Technology folder> i get the message "the folder you specified doesn't contain a compatible software driver for your device"

Please do help. I am at my absolute wits end. This is day 5 of trying to resolve this problem