4TB Drive Only Shows 2TB: Why and How to Solve It?

Scenario

Why my 4TB Seagate drive only shows 2TB?

“I bought a 4 TB Seagate hard drive. But the drive only shows 2TB on the computer. Why does my 4TB hard drive only shows 2TB?how to find the other 2TB capacity?”

- Question from Tomshardware.com

Why 4TB hard drive only shows 2TB?

It is a common problem that 4TB (or 5TB, 6TB,etc) hard drive only shows 2TB, and the rest space is shown as an "unallocated" space in Disk Management. What’s worse, you can’t even use it to create other new volumes or partitions for data storage. At this moment, if you open Disk Management, you will find it is labeled as MBR disk.

There are 2 partition styles most commonly used to partition disk, MBR and GPT. They are different slightly in supported partition amounts, disk capacity, OS compatibility and boot mode. For example, GPT can support disk larger than 2TB but MBR partition style cannot. And this is the cause of 4TB SSD or 4TB HDD only showing 2TB.

So, to restore all the capacity of the hard drive, you need to convert the MBR disk to GPT disk. In the following content, let me walk you through how to perform such a conversion (Windows 11 only supports UEFI, so you need to convert MBR to GPT).

How to fix "4TB Drive Only Shows 2TB" on Windows 11/10/8/7

Here, we provide two methods of converting MBR to GPT partition style; you can choose one based on your need.

▶ Option 1. Convert 4TB drive to GPT with Diskpart (data loss)

There is a built-in tool called Diskpart, which can convert 4TB hard drive to GPT with several lines of command. Here are the detailed steps.

✍Note: this method needs to clean your disk before converting, so if it is not a new hard drive or has important data on it, you have to back up the disk beforehand.

Step 1. Press "WIN+R", type "diskpart" and press Enter to open it.

Step 2. Type the following commands, remember press Enter after you input each one.

● list disk
● select disk n (n means the drive letter, replace it with your 4TB drive letter)
● clean (clear all partitions on the selected disk)
● convert gpt

When the "DiskPart successfully converted the selected disk to GPT format" shows on the screen, type "exit" and press "Enter" to leave the program, and check if the rest of the capacity is restored.

▶ Option 2. Convert 4 TB drive to GPT via software (data safe)

Diskpart Command Line is an effective way to convert MBR to GPT for fixing "4 TB shows only 2 TB" issue in Windows 11/10/8/7, but it has an obvious disadvantage: you have to delete all existing partitions and data on the drive. Moreover, these command lines may be difficult to remember in a short time for computer beginners. And it is easy to input the wrong disk number and lose important files.

Fortunately, you can turn to AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional. It allows you to convert MBR disk to GPT without removing partitions and losing any data. In addition, thanks to its user-friendly operation interface, you don’t need to remember any command or complex operation. Now download the freeware and install it on your Windows computer, and see how to operate it.

Step 1. Open AOMEI Partition Assistant Pro. Right-click the 4 TB SSD or HDD only showing 4TB and needing to be converting, and choose "Convert to GPT".

Step 2. And click "OK".

Step 3. Then click "Apply" on the left top of the main interface.

And wait a while, the hard drive will be converted to GPT disk, and you can use the full capacity of the hard drive.

★Tips:

The Professional edition also allows you to convert boot disk between MBR and GPT partition style without deleting operating system.

To avoid data loss due to improper human operations or sudden power outage, backing up important data is always a great idea.

Conclusion

I believe the 2 methods can help you to fix "4TB drive only shows 2TB" in Windows 11/10/8/7. Both methods can be applied to different brands of storage drives, like Seagate, WD. But method 2 is more recommended, because you don’t need to delete any data on the drive, and you can keep lots of features in one tool, like resizing partition, merging partitions, copying partition, wiping hard drive, checking bad sector on a hard drive.

And If your computer is running with the Windows Server 2022, 2019, 2016, 2012(R2), 2008(R2), 2003, you can try AOMEI Partition Assistant Server Edition, which is specialized for Server system.

FAQs about 4 TB drive only shows 2 TB

1. Why does my 4TB drive only show 2TB?
There are a few reasons why a 4TB drive might only show 2TB of storage. One common reason is that the drive is formatted using the older MBR (Master Boot Record) partitioning scheme, which has a limitation of 2TB.

2. How can I fix my 4TB drive showing only 2TB?
To fix this issue, you need to convert the drive to GPT (GUID Partition Table) format, which doesn't have the 2TB limitation. This can be done using disk management tools like Disk Management in Windows or third-party software like AOMEI Partition Assistant.

3. Will converting my drive to GPT format cause data loss?
Converting your drive from MBR to GPT should not cause any data loss. However, it's always a good idea to back up your data before making any significant changes to your disk partitions, just to be safe.

4. Can I convert my drive from MBR to GPT without losing data?
Yes, if your hard drive shows the wrong capacity on the computer and if this issue is caused by partition scheme, you can convert your drive from MBR to GPT without losing data using tools like AOMEI Partition Assistant. These tools allow you to convert the partition table without formatting or erasing any data on the drive.