Finding a new appropriate IRST driver was another exercise in frustration since I already had the last one Dell offered or recommended. After considerable research and frustration I traced it down to the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver needed to be updated. I ran into problems with that a few months ago when I replaced the original Seagate Barracuda 1TB HDD that came in my 2010 Dell XPS 8100 with a new WD Black High Performance 1TB HDD that uses 'advanced format'. I feel like I'm making this more complicated than it is. If I don't partition the drive and leave it as one large drive, is it one big GPT partiton?

If I partition the drive Windows 7 will know to automatically use GPT partitions? What happens when I plug in the > 2.2GB external drive (USB) for the first time?ĭoes Windows 7 automatically recognize the full available capacity of the drive or only up to what's left under 2.2GB? Older USB drivers and chipsets wouldn't support this, but anything you buy today should be fine with it. One wrinkle that you might run into with external drives is USB support for large volumes. Windows 7 also handles 'advanced format' volumes with large sector sizes without breaking a sweat. Since you're asking about external hard drives, this shouldn't be an issue for you. In that case you need to have a UEFI motherboard that understands GPT-partitioned disks. The only complication you'll run into is if you want to use a boot volume that's greater than 2TB. Once partitioned, you can format the volume using the standard NTFS file system. You need to use GPT partitions rather than MBR partitions, but the Disk Management tool in Windows 7 will do this seamlessly and automatically. I run both internal and external 4TB volumes on Windows 7 for a few years and now I'm running an internal 8TB volume with it. Yes, Windows 7 works fine with large volumes, both internal and external. Does Windows 7 recognize the full capacity of external hard drives larger than 2.2TB without any special formatting or partitioning needed?

Hard drive with windows 7