Lost Almost Half of the Storage Capacity on my Seagate 4 TB Hard Drive
I purchased a new 4 TB hard drive from Seagate to replace a drive that was failing. Used Disk Wizard, and with the help of Seagate support set up two drives: Drive C, capacity 1.99 TB, and drive H, which had a capacity somewhat less than 2 TB. All was working fine. Then I purchased Acronis True Image 2016 from Acronis in January, 2016. My drive H disappeared. Thus I only have 2 TB total usable space on my new 4 TB hard drive! Called Seagate, and was told that there may be a way to resolve this, but would need to contact Acronis, as he could not help me. Apparently the motherboard on my Alienware Aurora system will not directly support a 4 TB hard drive. My question is: can I use True Image 2016 or some other means to create another hard drive and restore this lost capacity? I did not realize that installing True Image 2016 removed Disk Wizard and deleted drive H from my system.
Jim Kaye


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https://kb.acronis.com/content/48596
The extended capacity driver was discontinued starting with the 2015 version. Disk Wizard is based on an older version that still included that functionality.
Formatting the disk with the GUID Partition Table (GPT) would allow you to use its full capacity, however it would only boot on a UEFI capable system. If your computer doesn't support UEFI, then it can only boot from a disk formatted with the Master Boot Record (MBR) which has a 2TB limit. The extended capacity driver bypassed this limitation. You may have to uninstal 2016 and reinstall Disk Wizard to boot and use the full capacity of the disk.
http://www.acronis.com/en-us/support/contact-us.html
If you purchased 2016 in the last 30 days you should contact support via live chat or email about this issue. Acronis support staff doesn't actively monitor the forum and your support and refund period is only 30 days.
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My computer is running Windows 7, and the hard drives are all formatted as NTFS. Spent considerable time over the phone with Seagate, who told me about the limitation of the motherboard on my Alienware Aurora system, which was purchased in March of 2010. Using the extended capacity feature of Disk Wizard, it was possible to extend the capacity beyond 2 TB, creating drive H. This drive was usable and working until I upgraded to Acronis True Image 2016. When Disk Wizard was removed, drive H was also removed. No warnings, it was just gone! I will try to resolve this with Acronis. So far, have not been able to speak with anyone at Acronis without having to pay. Not a happy camper right now!!
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Your reply was very informative, and confirmed the information I received by phone while working with Seagate to set up the 4 TB hard drive. I believe that my computer, an Alienware Aurora purchased in March, 2010, does not support UEFI, but using the extended capacity driver feature of Disk Wizard, Seagate helped me create drive H. I have purchased Acronis True Image 2016 within the last 30 days, and will contact Acronis, as they may not actively monitor this forum (they should!). It should be possible to contact them by phone without having to pay, but so far have been unable to do this.
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James,
Joey is spot on with his recommendations and I now understand what it is about your mothrboard that keeps it from recognizing and accessing your large drive.
Joey, thanks for helping out here.
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I'd just like to add, don't be tempted to fiddle with the drive partitions using any disk management utilities including Windows Disk Manager, as it is possible that your 'H' partition is still on your drive and still contains data, it is just that Windows can't see it.
I believe Acronis are looking at your problem, so I'd wait to see if you get some sort of reply, before trying other options.
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Thanks to all for your helpful comments and suggestions. I checked to confirm when I upgraded to Acronis True Image 2016, and the credit card transaction was completed on December 24, 2015. Since this is more than 30 days ago, I may not be entitled to any refund. I did transfer some files onto drive H, but nothing important. I have done full backups using True Image 2016 such that I cannot backup again because there is not enough room left on my 2 TB external hard drive. Was thinking of uninstalling True Image 2016, then reinstalling Disk Wizard and having Seagate phone support help reinstall the extended manager so I can recover my lost disk capaqcity, but will wait awhile in case Acronis contacts me.
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Just to be clear this is a single 4TB drive that is your boot drive and has 2TB as C: and 2TB as H:?
If it is not your primary boot drive and if it is already GPT you should be able to extend out the rest of the drive and hopefully have everything back.
If the drive is MBR though, unfortunately, you would have to convert to GPT which usually means formatting the drive. HOWEVER, I just used the free minitool partition wizard on a test drive and had no problems with data loss when converting from GPT to MBR and back to GPT. It's still a gamble as something "could" go wrong, but it did work for me.
They have a tutorial and a video that explains and shows how to do this
http://www.partitionwizard.com/help/convert-MBR-disk-to-GPT-disk.html
I'm curious to know what your 4TB disk looks like in Windows disk manager currently though - is it just a 2TB disk that is completely in use, or is it a 4TB disk that shows 2TB in use and the other 2TB as unallocated or something like that?
From what the other posts say, your mobo just doesn't support drives bigger than 2TB for booting. Perhaps you could purchase a small drive and push your OS onto it and use it as your boot/OS only and then mount the 4TB as storage so that you can take advantage of it once Windows has loaded?
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Using Disk Management, the following is displayed:
Disk 0 - Unknown, 931.51 GB Unallocated, Not Initialized. This was formerly my Drive C, which was failing and was replaced by the new 4 TB drive. It now appears as Drive E, but the contents are not viewable.
Disk 1 - Basic, 3726.02 GB, partitioned as A) 40 MB, B) RECOVERY, 8.22 GB NTFS, C) (C:) 2039.74 GB NTFS, D) 167 8.02 GB Unallocated.
Disk 2 - Basic, 1863.02 GB, FreeAgent Drive (G:), 1863.01 GB NTFS.
CD-ROM 0 - DVD (F:)
I am currently using 491 GB on Drive C for Windows 7 and all my files, and 1.51 TB is free space according to Disk C Properties. Drive H is no longer displayed under Hard Disk Drives, and Drive E appears, but has 0 bytes used space, 0 bytes free space, and 0 bytes total space.
Am not familiar with GPT, but will look at the tutorial and video. After spending many hours on the phone with Seagate reinstalling Windows 7 and all of my flight simulation and scenery files, I am a bit reluctant to risk having to go through all of this again. All was working so well, with the space beyond 2 TB available on drive H until I purchased Acronis True Image 2016!
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Totally understand, I'd be frustrated too! You can't blame Acronis entirely for this though - your system doesn't support booting of drives larger than 2TB and isn't supported by the manufacturer and that's ultimately the real problem. Granted it has been (was) working, and sounds like you've rebuilt and got it working again by installing the extended capacity driver from your previous application so I'm glad to hear that if that is indeed the case.
I don't know if you have the time or desire to attempt this, but if you do (maybe with a different drive for testing?), what would happen if you used double driver to easily copy all of your drivers to a single location which should grab the Acronis extended driver as well (in theory if you're back up and running again). Then install ATIH 2016 (which would most likely break your system again - to the extent of it not recognizing the other 2TB of your drive) and power down (don't boot to Windows yet if possible). Then use Univeral restore and slip stream the Acronis Extended Capacity driver and boot up and see what happens.
I know it's a lot to ask to test, and if you don't want to, or can't, no worries, but it might be a way to fix this problem for you or others with this unique situation. Also, do you have the latest Dell bios - might be worth checking (just in case). Dell probably hasn't released one for that model in awhile, but if you're not on the latest, and there is somethingn newer, larger drive support may be a feature that was added.
Probably also not in the cards, but if you were able to image your system to another smaller drive and just push your OS to it and leave that as the OS and boot drive, and keep your data on the 4TB drive by itself I'm pretty sure Windows would have no problem with the 4TB drive as a secondary, non boot drive since Windows 7 and above have native support for these size disks and the 2TB boot drive limit is based on your motherboard. Again though, I know testing this may not be possible in your situation, but if you have the opportunity to try it, I think it would work as well.
This is a great article which might provide more help for your specific scenario.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/235088/everything-you-need-to-know-about…
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Thanks for your helpful suggestions. I read the PC World article, as well as the article on converting to GPT. My system is currently working fine. The total Used space is 494 GB, with a remaining free space of 1.50 TB. Thus I am using about 1/4 of the 1.99 TB C drive. Acronis True Image 2016 is backing up the files correctly onto my 2 TB external drive. For now I have decided to select the 'Do Nothing' option.
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Hello James,
I've discussed your scenario with our development team and my colleagues would ask you to send us Acronis system report as feedback from your machine, so that we could investigate this issue.
Thank you in advance!
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Acronis System Report is attached as a .zip file. Hope this is helpful. Thanks for responding.
Jim Kaye
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James, please see the PM message I sent you ASAP. Thanks!
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I don't think there is anything in my attachment that could not go on a public forum. I see no way to add an attachment to a PM. The Acronis System Report seems to include a large number of files and folders. Please advise. Thanks.
Jim Kaye
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Jim seem my new PM... you can PM Ekaterina from Acronis as well, by clicking on her name and work with her directly to get an upload link.
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Hello James,
Thank you for additional information! I will update this post as soon as I get any details on the root cause from my colleagues. Besides you can send us the system report directly as feedback from the product.
Bobbo_3C0X, Thank you for your assistance!
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