Boot camp can't handle more than 2TB of a 3TB WD hard drive

What are you using the 3TB for?

What are you usiing to read or access and mount it? Is it still HFS+ or something else?

If you want to access HFS+ from Windows then you will need I am sure something like MacDrive HFS driver.

AppleHFS and AppleMNT.sys is what Boot Camp installed to access your home account HFS but it is limited and can be buggy even, and does not provide write ability.

Well, r/w under Windows generally means it is NTFS. Which means w/o NTFS for Mac OS X it is read-only under OS X

Most people are shocked or surprised that you have read only access to HFS, but it is there in the pdf guide.

In Disk Utility click on 3TB raw drive. Now look at status below the window where it says "GUID" which would support 3TB, or if it shows Windfows Master Boot Record.

You can convert from MBR to GPT in Windows.

Not possible.

To support Windows, Apple hardware uses a CSM-BIOS. The Windows installer, when booted in BIOS mode, only supports the MBR partition scheme, which is limited to 2.2TB disks. Not partitions, disks.

It would seem eventually Apple will need to update their EFI firmware so Windows can EFI boot instead, in which case Windows will then support GPT. And a huge number of hybrid MBR problems go away as well as the 2.2TB limit.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/235088/everything_you_need_to_know_about_3tb_hard _drives.html

http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/hybrid.html

Using a drive under Windows, just format the drive as GPT. I do it all the time. You can use Lifeguard (my choice I'm sure there are other ways) to strip a drive of all partitioning and then use Windows to initialize and use its own GPT and create it as data drive. Works.

You're probably confused.

The original poster said this 3TB disk is an internal disk for use with both Mac OS and Windows (dual boot).

The disk is already GPT for the Mac OS, and it will see all 3TB.

Windows 7 when it BIOS boots, only uses MBR for boot disks. When Windows 7 EFI boots, it only uses GPT for boot disks. Windows can use either MBR or GPT for spare disks (internal or external) which are not boot disks.

On Apple hardware, presently Windows 7 BIOS boots, which means the disk must have an MBR entry. And thus is limited to 2.2TB.

It is a data drive.

You can use HFS MacDrive or Paragon's.

You can see all 3TB if it is GPT.

It does not matter.

No disagreement there.

UEFI requires GPT. Hand in hand, can't have one w/o the other. I do that.

He does not have Windows on the same boot drive as OS X.

I'm confused? WHERE.

😮 "I added a 3 TB"

OK so I was confused. I originally read it as replacing the internal disk.

So yeah, as long as he makes sure it's using GPT and not MBR. But brand new drives don't have partition tables, and by default Disk Utility will make it GPT. So why the 2.2TB limitation?

Question for original poster, is this an internal disk? Or is it in a USB case? In Disk Utilty did you change the partition tab's Options from GUID Partition Table to Master Boot Record? If you did you need to repartition using GPT.

you can have so many issues with 3TB USB cases don't ever want to go there.... probably drive bay #4

All cases I'm generally thoroughly irritated with. Most do not pass through SMART or Secure Erase ATA commands, so if you actually care about your data, and monitoring your drives, you're SOL with most cases. eSATA is the obvious way around this.

I'm still not sure how Thunderbolt drives are treated, if they're effectively treated as SATA? I'm guessing the case has a little PCIe to SATA bridge in it.