Resolved MBP unable to properly read Seagate 3 TB drive

[umiwangu]

I bought a 3.5" Seagate 3 TB bare drive on Black Friday and I've just gotten to playing around with it. The only problem is, my MBP for some reason doesn't properly recognize it.

I have three different external enclosures, and with each one, OS X says that it can't read the drive, do I want to initialize it? If I say yes, then it mounts it as an 800 GB drive.

This is a July 2012 13.3" MBP, running 10.7.5.

Is this an external enclosure issue (the chips can't read anything above 2TB?) or something with OS X? Or something with the drive?

Thanks!

 

[meme1255]

Is it formated as MBR or GUID partion table? If MBR, try GUID

 

[Ccrew]

Is this an external enclosure issue (the chips can't read anything above 2TB?) or something with OS X? Or something with the drive?

Without knowing what the enclosures are, it would be the first place I'd be looking. Many cap out at 2gb. From there as another pointed out, it would be drive formatting/partitioning type. What does Disk utility say it is if you attempt to repartition it?

 

[umiwangu]

Without knowing what the enclosures are, it would be the first place I'd be looking. Many cap out at 2gb. From there as another pointed out, it would be drive formatting/partitioning type. What does Disk utility say it is if you attempt to repartition it?

One of my "enclosures" is Thermaltake's BlacX ST0005U. I looked on Thermaltake's website and they don't say anything about drive size. I do know my WD Green 1.5 TB won't work in here, but I thought it wasn't size that was the issue.

There are no partitions when I first plug it in. If I format it, it will only let me format up to 801.23 GBs.

 

[meme1255]

Try to format whole HDD to GUID, don't mind how many GBs are shown

 

[umiwangu]

Try to format whole HDD to GUID, don't mind how many GBs are shown

Same thing. Limited to 801.23.

It's interesting, even in the place where Disk Utility lists the drive, it has 801.57 GB as part of the name.

 

[meme1255]

Could you post screen here?

 

[Ccrew]

One of my "enclosures" is Thermaltake's BlacX ST0005U. I looked on Thermaltake's website and they don't say anything about drive size. I do know my WD Green 1.5 TB won't work in here, but I thought it wasn't size that was the issue.
.

"Supports All 2.5” & 3.5” SATA HDDs up to 2 TB! Dual data transfer connectors: eSATA + USB 2.0."

There's your problem. Doesn't understand the drive geometry of a larger drive.

That came from Thermaltake's link off Google. Looks when you go to the device page the new ones support larger drives. I Have the same one about a year old bought at BB, it max'es at 2gb.

Amazon says 2gb too.
http://www.amazon.com/Thermaltake-B...&qid=1354993098&sr=8-1&keywords=blacx+st0005u

 

[umiwangu]

Could you post screen here?

Sure. I think it is an external enclosure issue though. I'm going to check with Thermaltake to see what they say.

 

[umiwangu]

"Supports All 2.5” & 3.5” SATA HDDs up to 2 TB! Dual data transfer connectors: eSATA + USB 2.0."

There's your problem. Doesn't understand the drive geometry of a larger drive.

What the hell... I just looked on this page and it says in all capacities. Where did you find that?

 

[Ccrew]

What the hell... I just looked on this page and it says in all capacities. Where did you find that?

I googled "BlacX ST0005U" and it was right there on Thermaltake's link. Then you go to the link and it says "all capacities". I'll bet $ they snuck an upgrade in and now they support it and the older ones don't.

 

[umiwangu]

I googled "BlacX ST0005U" and it was right there on Thermaltake's link. Then you go to the link and it says "all capacities". I'll bet $ they snuck an upgrade in and now they support it and the older ones don't.

Yep, you're probably right. I think I got mine back in 2009/2010. I think all my enclosures are from back then. I guess there's probably no way to upgrade the firmware on it either.

Oh well. If I remember, I'll try to post back when I get a newer enclosure.

S

 

[umiwangu]

I got an email back from Thermaltake saying they don't offer firmware upgrades on their BlacX products. I think instead of buying a 3 TB capable dock, I'm going to finally get a WHS box. Anyone interested in selling their Proliant N40L? I guess I could check in the Marketplace.

Thanks guys!

 

[foto-max]

This is exactly the same predicament that I was in this week. Tried to format my new Seagate 3Tb internal drive via an older Thermaltake dock and disk utility would only format it to 800 Gb. I also have a newer Thermaltake dock which I then used and 'voila, it formatted correctly.

 

[umiwangu]

This is exactly the same predicament that I was in this week. Tried to format my new Seagate 3Tb internal drive via an older Thermaltake dock and disk utility would only format it to 800 Gb. I also have a newer Thermaltake dock which I then used and 'voila, it formatted correctly.

What concerns me is that even the new docks state 3 TB as their max hard drive compatibility size. What happens when we get above 3 TB? Do we need to buy new docks?

Also, when I stop to think about it, it's amazing that you can get a 3 TB drive for under $100 on sale, and just over 6 years ago, I spent about that much on a 1 TB drive.