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Forum Discussion
PeteCress
Sep 24, 2015Apprentice
Converting EXT3 to NTFS Under Windows 7 ?
I am pretty sure I asked this question a few years back and got a solution here.... but I have lost all of my saved subscriptions in the change to the new forum format.... so here goes again....
I just retired a 3 TB drive from my Ultra-6 and now I want to use it on my Windows 7 PC - formatted as NTFS.
Did what seemed like the obvious:
- MyComputer | Manage | Disk Management
- Selected the EXT3 drive
- Deleted existing partitions
But that left me with only 746.52 gigs available - instead of 3 TB.
I formatted that to NTFS anyhow - just hoping that Windows would see the problem and fix it on-the-fly.
But somebody, somewhere in WIndows 7 threw a Warning dialog:
"The detected total capacity (746 GB) of the drive Disk #7: Hitachi....
is not correct the capacity should be 2794 GB....."
On a WIndows command line, I tried CONVERT G: /fs:ntfs, but CONVERT said that
the disk was already NTFS (true, but only 746 gigs...).
Deleted the partition and, of course, the drive letter went away so there was no
drive letter to feed to CONVERT.
Seems like the last time I was here the solution was something with the WIndows
FORMAT command. Tried Googling and wound up with many hits - but all from a
Linux perspective.
Can anybody shed some light?
6 Replies
Replies have been turned off for this discussion
- StephenBGuru - Experienced User
How old is the PC?
The drive needs to use GPT partitions, not MBR. It looks like Windows isn't doing that for some reason. One possibility is that the PC hardware is too old and doesn't support 3 TB drives. Another is that the OS is just confused on the partitions for some reason.
You can download WDC Lifeguard, and use its "advanced" test options to actually zero the drive - then try again.
- PeteCressApprentice
I get a lot of hits on "WD Lifeguard", but none on "WDC....".
Any chance it should be "WD" ?
- PeteCressApprentice
Not sure how old the PC is, but it's an I-7.
- StephenBGuru - Experienced User
Lifeguard is a Western Digital drive diagnostic, and is found on wdc.com. A direct link is http://download.wdc.com/windlg/WinDlg_v1_28.zip
A guide to windows disk formatting is here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/formatting-disks-and-drives-frequently-asked-questions
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