How to Format Western Digital-Caviar Green WD25EZRSDTL 2.50 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive-WD25EZRSDTL

Hello,

I wanted to share my experience with Western Digital-Caviar Green WD25EZRSDTL 2.50 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive-WD25EZRSDTL that I recently purchased for a great price on BestBuy.com.

The first thing I tried was what I actually bought it for.
But when I went to format it on my WHS / Windows Home Server it would only recognize it as like only a 230 GB drive.

After trying to format the Western Digital-Caviar Green WD25EZRSDTL 2.50 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive-WD25EZRSDTL I bought for a great deal it was apparent that all the units I tried it on would only recognize 200 GB plus.

All of the windows pc's that I tried to format this large Hard Drive / Disk on would not recognize more that about 230 GB.

At this point I was getting frustrated.
So....
I then tried a defferent approach with a different Operating System.
I then tried to install/format the new Western Digital-Caviar Green WD25EZRSDTL 2.50 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive-WD25EZRSDTL with CENTOS 5.5 and then became aware that this drive is designed to use (GPT) Partitioning.

(GPT) Partitioning is a never format similar to (MBR) & (NTFS) Partitioning.

The Centos 5.5 Operating System failed to format and install.

At this time I began to realize this was a difference with 32 bit (x86) versus an updated 64 bit system.

As I began to do research on this issue I came to realize that (GPT) Partitioning is usable on Windows 7 and Windows Vista on a 64 bit system.

At that time I did not have a 64 bit system running Windows 7.
But...
I did have a PC running Windows Vista on a 64 bit PC.

I then tried to format the drive on the 64 bit Windows Vista PC.
But...
I was unsuccessful...
The Vista 64 bit PC would only recognize approximately 230 Gigabytes just like the 32 bit units were doing.

At this time I gave up and was looking to return the Western Digital-Caviar Green WD25EZRSDTL 2.50 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive-WD25EZRSDTL for a full refund.

Approximately 1 week later I had a Hard Drive / Disk fail on a 32 bit PC running Windows XP Professional on my WHS / Windows Home Server Network.

When I went to do a restore on the Hard Drive that had failed.
I realized that it would allow me to format a (GPT) Partitioned drive as a replacement.

At this point I set up the Western Digital-Caviar Green WD25EZRSDTL 2.50 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive-WD25EZRSDTL as the replacement drive on the 32 bit PC that had a hard drive fail and performed the same procedure I did when replacing the failed drive on the 32 bit PC.

The trick is to format the drive then after the format is finished just cancel out of the restore procedure and you now have a formatted drive.

Watch the video in this article but just cancel the restore when the formatting is finished.

How to Restore Disk Drive WHS / Windows Home Server

This worked for me
Plus I was able to format the drive in NTFS not GPT.
This is a huge plus for using the Western Digital-Caviar Green WD25EZRSDTL 2.50 TB 3.5" Internal Hard Drive-WD25EZRSDTL on an older system.

Good Luck!
Feel free to comment.

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