Ive built my PC - Please help me fix the very last thing... (Serious Poost)
 

Please bear in mind Im new to PC (coming from mac) and I just built this thing myself, so I admit I dont know everything... Anyway... Problem is as follows.
C Drive = 500GB m.2
D Drive = 3TB HDD.

During original win 10 install, something got fucked up with the install, and somehow some files (system reserved stuff) ended up on 3TB drive. So I unplugged 3TB drive, and reinstalled windows again with just the m.2. All seemed fine. I unplug PC, plug 3TB drive back in, all is good...

When I look at 'This PC / My Computer' I just see my C drive - PIC BELOW...

https://i.imgur.com/j0UGKUO.jpg

Now, in order to get it to 'See' the other drive, Google says that I need to 'initalize it' - OK, so here it is awaiting my command. You will notice however, its in 2 parts - Its partioned itself....

https://i.imgur.com/WHW2Hhe.jpg

So, if I go to 'initalize' the first part, I can... See pic below...

https://i.imgur.com/KAgS6tF.jpg

I can make a 'new simple volume' OK, thats great... But when I click on the second part, that is greyed out... See pic below.

https://i.imgur.com/RmzgDvx.jpg

Now at this point, you might say - Yes, because you need to do the first bit first. Make that D then it wont be greyed out and you can do the other part and make it 'E' then merge them together etc, and I would agree. That would be ideal...

But heres the thing... I cant. I can initalize the first part, format it etc, and get 2 TB, but even with it formatted, I cant get that last bit to play nice - Its still greyed out..

Ive tried it a couple of times, and when I made those grabs, Id just deleted it again. So any ideas guys? How do I make the other part formatable, without needing to use another PC (Which I dont have) or is the drive bad??? HELP :) Aside from that, Ive AMAZED myself and everything else is working FLAWLESSY ! Even the subtle red glow I wanted s a 'nod' to RGB but not a full on fucking DISCO on my desk !

Anyway, hope you can help :) Thanks in advance :thumbsup

it's been a while but I think there might be a 2GB limit on some file system formats. I thought ntfs is supposed to exceed that, but I might be wrong. look up ntfs vs fat32, might get you in a useful direction.

No its not that mate - Thats for actual files themselves.

Thing is I can NTFS the 2048.00 section, no problem... But even with it formatted, the 746.52GB section wont allow me to format it. I cant even make the first partion larger to use up the space :(

OK, thanks for that. Ive tried to understand it as best I can, but even trying to read the arguments in the coments as wekll, Im still not clear.

If you are saying that I cant have a partion larger than 2TB on my 3TB disk, (Which is not the boot disk) well thats OK, I can live with that, but I still cant understand why I can only formatt the first artion and not the second? I could live with a 2TB 'D' Drive and a 1 TB 'E' drive, but I cant even achieve that... :(

Anyway, thanks a bunch, but its been a long day so Im gonna log off and get some sleep now. Night...

This is something I would not want to give advice on as far as keeping what you have, since it's such a precarious situation.

But if you want my advice...start the fuck over and do it right this time. If you haven't yet installed all of your apps and programs, it's no big deal to nuke a fresh install and start over.

You can always rub some poo on it.

I don't have a solution but I have several 4tb and 8tb hard drives all as 1 full partition each in win10

I think this is what I would do. Times I've tried to solve that sort of thing, I ended up with legacy workaround headaches for ages.

The article that InfoGuy linked says to use (newer) GPT partitions. MBR cannot handle sizes larger than 2TB. That should fix your problem.

Boot your bios, and make sure you're in UEFI mode.

Re-initizalize disk with GPT partition table

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/...c-69d52e2baa53

Thanks - That looks almost EXACTLY what my problem is, and that Im gonna have to do it via commanand line. Not that terrifying for me, as I am familier with command lines from the iMac and my little adventures into linux etc...

Anyway, thanks again, I'll have a go when Ive woken up properly and report back later - Thnaks :)

ALL DONE ! Thanks everyone !

Didnt even need to go into command line. I just clicked on the box that actually said 'Disk 0' and it offered me the selection to do it there :)