my Desktop system won't recognize the 1 TB internal hard drive
By clorissa123
@clorissa123 (4926)
United States
December 21, 2009 4:43am CST
I thought that I have confidence on my desktop system to be compatible with 1 TB internal hard drive. It turns out to be I am wrong. I bought an internal hard drive yesterday, and test it out on my system. It doesn't work, and it won't accept it. I test it again on my other desktop, it only shown 7 GB out of that 1 TB in another desktop. So, it is completely not compatible. I have to return it today. So, I just wonder, how can you know whether your system is compatible with bigger internal storage or not?
1 person likes this
8 responses
@owlwings (43915)
• Cambridge, England
21 Dec 09
You don't say what operating system you are using, the make of the drive and whether it is SATA or IDE.
The fact that one PC doesn't see the drive and another only sees 7 GB strongly suggests that the drive itself may be faulty but it could also be a firmware problem or a problem with compatibility of your SATA drivers (assuming it's a SATA drive).
On searching the Internet for problems with 1TB drives, I notice that there are several makes which have known compatibility issues.
@clorissa123 (4926)
• United States
21 Dec 09
The drive I have purchased was Hitachi, and it was SATA drive. My operating system currently using is Windows Vista, and It won't recognize it. Only the external drive works perfectly fine. That is the issue. Well, I should get one with the external much more easy to operate.
@systems (459)
• India
21 Dec 09
First thing is you have not mentioned your system configuration..
Whether your system board is new or old.. Does it support drives of Higher capacity?
Is your BIOS updated if your system board is Old..
Is the Drive IDE or SATA, if SATA does your system support it..
Is your Operating system has latest drivers or Service packs installed...
Then where did u check that its showing 7GB, has it been partitioned correctly and in a proper File System.. (FAT32, NTFS, ext2, ext3, etc..)
You have not mentioned which operating system you are using..
Check all these things...
@scarlet_woman (23465)
• United States
22 Dec 09
it could be your motherboard needs updated to see it.call a computer store if you know the model and ask them about flashing the bios.
if you have two newer computers showing only GB storage there might be something wrong with it.
@warvial (1146)
• Singapore
22 Dec 09
Hi there, although I am no expert in computer, I think it could be the hard drive that you bought is faulty. Because you mentioned about plugging into two different system, and one can't detect it while another reads only 7GB. Since you are going to return it to the stop, check with the person whether is it your system compatibility issue or is it the harddrive itself.
@kaylachan (57804)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
21 Dec 09
Know your system. Read everything up on it you can. Quite often it will tell you what it has and what it is capable of. Check to make sure you installed it properlly. Don't buy anything until you compare the specs of your system, and talked to several people. Get recomidations, most external units are perfered then internal ones because of problems like this.
@pratibi (11)
• India
21 Dec 09
Hi, something similar happened with me some time back where my newly added disk was not showing the correct capacity. After doing some research I figured out that my BIOS needed upgrade to be able to recognise the same. However it depends upon the version of your system BIOS and the type of hard disk you have. Mine was a SATA disk. hope this helps.
