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My friend has a Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB hard drive. I had borrowed the hard rive for backup purpose. I am simply formatting my pc. I am having two drive in my system. One is 1TB and other one is 500GB. The drive works fine, but there are lots of data and there is a virus issue also. So I want to format it and install fresh OS on the same. After connecting the hard drive it is detected but the partition does not looks readable.
I think that will not work on 32bit system. You must have a 64bit system for the same. I am having a single 3TB hard drive that is detected and work really well. I am also having a 500GB secondary hard drive. At first I had installed Windows 7 32bit where the drive was not formatting, Then I switched to 64bit and it worked. I am able to use entire space. You will also have to do the same thing.
It will work but on GPT partition. The regular partition system is not able to identify that much amount of storage in your system. There are ample of tutorial available on the web that gives you information on gps partitioning system. You can also use third party tools for that purpose. Just go ahead with gpt partition and check that will surely work. This is the easiest way to get entire 4TB drive.
I am giving you a link below. This link will give you option through which you can use a drive larger than 2tB storage space. There are some process for the same. It also depend on your motherboard. Or else you wont be able to access such a high space. Most of the system works well with 2TB drives but when it goes above that then there is a bit issue. Just check the below image and try back.
Windows support for hard disks that are larger than 2 TB
I am having Gigabyte motherboard. I am using a custom pc which is for gaming. It has AMD FX8350 cpu with 1GBNvidia 650Ti gpu, and 8GB ram. I had added a 3TB hard drive on that. It is a single drive. At start windows was not detecting entire space. I found a utility called as 3TB unlock. This utility helped me to get the entire space on my pc which is working really well.
It is important that once you format the drive you must use it in your own system only. If you switched that to some other then there can be serious problem. I was using two drives. One is 3TB and other one is 500GB gpt partition. When I switched the drive into different pc I was getting a regular gpt partition error on the screen. This is a big issue with this partition type.
There are some third party software that can help you to fix the problem you are facing. One of them is Paragon Partition Manager. This software can help you to manage various partition types in your system. It is also very easy to use. You can change the partition type and make changes whenever you want. This one is the best tool for managing windows partition. I will recommend you to test this one.
To use that drive effectively you will have to understand first about gpt partition. I am providing you a link below that has more information about using gpt partition. There is a faq available that has more details about using gpt thing. You can just check out the link below and then go ahead with formatting. I hope you are not having any data in the drive.
Windows and GPT FAQ