PC Drivers & Software

[mtl777]

I have a 3TB hard drive on which I created three logical partitions and no primary partition at all. This was done in Windows XP. I am able to see the partitions in Windows XP and access them perfectly. But when I mount the drive on a Windows 7 Pro 64-Bit system that I recently created, Windows 7 is unable to see the partitions.  My drive is seen as unallocated space of only 746.5GB in Disk Management.

I came upon this suggested solution:

https://www.partitionwizard.com/partitionmanager/3tb-drive-shows-746gb.html

The solution suggested for Intel systems is to install the latest Intel® Rapid Storage Technology driver.  For AMD systems, they recommend to update to the latest chipset and SATA/RAID drivers.  Since my system is AMD (Phenom II X3), I would like to know where to find the latest chipset and SATA/RAID drivers for my mobo, which is an old Asrock M3A790GXH/128M.  It has an AMD 790GX chipset for the North Bridge and AMD SB750 chipset for the South Bridge.

Could anyone please help me find the latest chipset and SATA/RAID drivers for my system?

Thanks in advance for your much appreciated help!

[black_zion]

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download

Chipset drivers link.

[mtl777]

Thank you so much Black_Zion!

Upon making my choices on the download page, I am brought to the following:

http://support.amd.com/en-us/download/desktop/legacy?product=legacy4&os=Windows%207%20-%2064​

Why is it saying "AMD Display Driver"?  I was looking for chipset driver.

Anyway, the download links are showing AMD Chipset Drivers and AMD RAIDXpert Utility so I guess it's correct.

I am not using RAID.  Do I need to install the RAIDXpert Utility?

And how do I install the driver(s)?  Do I need to uninstall the previous driver(s) first before I install the new driver(s)?

[black_zion]

[mtl777]

Wow, 6/7/2018 chipset drivers! Awesome! How did you get to that page?  Could you please provide a link?

Thank you so much!

[black_zion]

Same link as before, scroll down to the driver listings.

[kingfish]

Download Drivers

[mtl777]

When I go to that link and scroll down and click the AMD Chipset Drivers, I am brought here:

Chipset

But I see that this page applies to Ryzen CPU, not my old Phenom II X3.  Also my chipset is the old AMD 790GX chipset for the North Bridge and AMD SB750 chipset for the South Bridge, not the ones shown on that page.  Are you sure those drivers will work for me?

[kingfish]

[mtl777]

Okay, I went to the Previous Drivers link, took a look at all the previous drivers, and ended up with the same legacy driver that I already found before and that was linked to by elstaci:  Legacy

I have a question about this driver package.  The description says it includes the AMD USB 3.0 driver, but my mobo is old and supports only USB 2.0.  When I run this package, I see that there is an "AMD USB Filter Driver", which I guess is the AMD USB 3.0 driver.  Should I include this USB Filter driver in the installation or not? What will happen if I include it even though my mobo supports only USB 2.0?

[black_zion]

Include everything in the package.

[mtl777]

Thank you.

Although available in the download page, I did not install the RAIDXpert Utility because I'm not using RAID in my system. Am I correct in not installing RAIDXpert?

[elstaci]

The last AMD Chipset for your AMD Motherboard which is considered to be legacy you can download from here : Legacy . This is for Windows 7 OS.

Have you tried to re-partition or reconfigure your Volumes on your 3 terabyte Hard drive under Windows 7 Computer Management - Storage?  Seems likely that Windows 7 is not compatible with the Windows XP type of partition for that size hard drive. If you repartition the hard drive using Windows 7 partition feature then it should show up correctly.

If at worst case, you can always delete the Windows XP partitions under Windows XP and then use Windows 7 to make new partitions. of course you will lose all data

You may want to backup your 3 terabyte Hard drive before doing any type of partitioning or volume changing in case data gets deleted in the process.

[mtl777]

Thank you elstaci!

I haven't tried to re-partition or reconfigure my 3TB drive for fear that I will lose the data. It is 75% full and I would have to buy another 3TB drive to back it up before I do these things.

[mtl777]

Okay, I have installed the latest (legacy) chipset drivers and I also downloaded and installed the latest AMD Display driver.  I see some progress now.  Disk Management is now able to see the full size of my 3TB drive as 2794.52GB.  The only thing is, it still doesn't see my partitions correctly.  It's seeing them as:

Partition 1: 1397.25GB free space

Partition 2: 650.75GB unallocated space

Partition 3: 746.52GB unallocated space

The correct partitioning as viewed from Windows XP should be:

Partition 1: MBk1 1274.65GB

Partition 2: MBk2 1274.47GB

Partition 3: MBk3 245.39GB

(MBk1, MBk2, and MBk3 are the names assigned to the partitions)

What should I do now?

[elstaci]

This website gives good instructions on re-partitioning your hard drive using Windows Disk Management. How To Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 10/8/7? | 3 Methods

Also from another website: How to Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 10 | Digital Trends

From Microsoft Support from 2014 about partitioning a Hard drive without losing data: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/970639/microsoft-support-how-to-re-partition-without-destro... .

You can always download a Free partitioning software like MiniTools Partition Wizard that probably does a better job than Windows.

[black_zion]

In Computer Management you can resize the partitions, just right click on a partition and choose to either extend or shrink.

[mtl777]

Thank you so much, guys! Really appreciated.

So I can shrink or expand the partitions as needed without losing data. But will shrinking or expanding a partition change the fact that Disk Management sees no data in it?  Let's say for example the first partition which is currently being seen as 1397.25GB free space. I can shrink this to the correct size of 1274.65GB and assign it the name "MBk1". After I do so, will the data in the partition magically appear when I access the drive from Windows Explorer?

And then, after shrinking the first partition, I will have unallocated space following the first partition which I can use to create the second partition, which I can then expand to the correct size of 1274.47GB and name it as "MBk2". After I do so, will the data in the partition magically appear when I access the drive from Windows Explorer?

To tell you the truth, even if the documentation says I won't lose data, I'm afraid to do this without having a backup of the drive first.  So I'm gonna buy a cheap 3TB drive on eBay first to use as a backup before I do this.

[elstaci]

Good idea.

Plus you can use the second hard drive as a general backup to your C: drive in case of failure of any type.

[mtl777]

I have gotten another 3TB drive and have played around with it. The following are my observations:

1. In Windows 7, with the drive as an MBR drive, I am NOT able to create a partition whose size is more than 2TB or multiple partitions whose total size is more than 2TB.

2. On the other hand, in Windows XP, I am able to create a partition whose size is more than 2TB or multiple partitions whose total size is more than 2TB!  Here the drive is likewise an MBR drive since Windows XP (32-bit) does not support GPT.  It seems that Windows XP does not respect the 2TB MBR limit!

3. I created a 1TB MBR partition in Windows 7 and it is not seen as a valid formatted partition in Windows XP.

4. Likewise, I created a 1TB partition in Windows XP and it is not seen as a valid formatted partition in Windows 7.

5. Thinking that 1TB might be too big, I created a 300GB MBR partition in Windows 7 and it is still not seen as a valid formatted partition in Windows XP.

6. I likewise created a 300GB MBR partition in Windows XP and it is still not seen as a valid formatted partition in Windows 7.

7. I concluded that when your drive is more than 2TB, the partitions created by Windows 7 and Windows XP, no matter if they're small or large, are not going to be compatible with each other. This is so because I had a 500GB drive with partitions created in Windows XP and I didn't have this problem.  The partitions created on the 500GB drive in Windows XP are perfectly visible and accessible in Windows 7. So the conflict arises when the drive is more than 2TB, as Windows 7 and Windows XP are formatting the partitions differently in such a drive.

8. When I converted the 3TB drive to GPT, I am unable to boot into Windows XP with the drive mounted.  I get a BSOD. This is because Windows XP (32-bit) does not support GPT.

My next step is to buy a 2TB drive with the hope that I can create MBR partitions on it that are visible and accessible in both Windows 7 and Windows XP.  Then in the Windows XP environment I will copy the data from my 3TB drive to the 2TB drive (I think the data are not too much and will fit on the 2TB).  And then in the Windows 7 environment I will convert the 3TB drive to GPT and copy the data from the 2TB drive back to the 3TB drive which is now going to be GPT and will be accessible from Windows 7.

Arrggh, this is such a long journey and such a pain to bring my 3TB drive over to Windows 7!

[elstaci]

Seems like you are correct. This is a link from Microsoft.com explaining about Partitioning a Hard driver greater than two terabytes in Windows 7: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2581408/windows-support-for-hard-disks-that-are-larger-than... .

[mtl777]

Thanks for the link, elstaci!

What's strange is, even though Microsoft says any Windows using MBR cannot access more than 2TB, my Windows XP is able to access my 3TB MBR drive with all the following partitions just fine:

Partition 1: MBk1 1274.65GB

Partition 2: MBk2 1274.47GB

Partition 3: MBk3 245.39GB

Theoretically, the addresses of the sectors in Partition 3 would already be way beyond the 2TB limit for MBR, but I am able to access the files in Partition 3 perfectly!  There must be something more to this than meets the eye.  Maybe the SATA/AHCI driver in my Windows XP is doing something different that allows it to circumvent the MBR 2TB limitation.  If I remember right, this SATA/AHCI driver came from Asrock, the manufacturer of my mobo. It's a pleasant surprise, but alas, now I realize it's not compatible with Windows 7.