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Master Boot Records - How do I reduce the amount of space it takes?

Hi guys, I recently built a new computer, and installed a WD green 4TB HDD in it. When I first started up the PC, I saw that the HDD wasn't showing up at My Computer. Did a little searching, and found that I had to go to Disk Management to "allocate" the space. When i tried to do that though, there was a popup that said something about master boot records, and I had to choose one half of the HDD for it. At this point of time I had no idea what a master boot record is.

 

Right now the MBR is using 1678gb of my hard drive, which I can't use for anything else because it is still not detected on My Computer. How do i reduce the amount of space it uses? and what is the required amount of space for it?

 

Thank you!

 

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That is the partition style and not what the partition is. (You are looking at the properties for the whole drive) You can see under the size of the black section that it is unallocated. This means that it doesn't have a partition assigned. 

You can select the first partition and look for an option to extend the partition. Then you can apply that extra 2TB to the original partition.

 

If this isn't possible it's likely that some part of your setup doesn't support over 2TB. But that's a different matter.

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You will have to reformat your drive as "GPT". The MBR partition type does not support volumes over 2TB. Give me a sec to find a guide for you.

 

Guide: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/26193-convert-mbr-disk-gpt-disk.html

 

Reference info: http://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

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Thanks for your quick replies guys. I wasn't able to extend the partition beyond 2TB, and had to reformat the drive as GPT, as rustikles said. This resolved my problem. Thanks for the guide!

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