If you your computer only recognizes 8.4 GB of a hard drive that is larger, follow these troubleshooting steps.

BIOS limitation

Verify that the hard drive is being fully recognized in your CMOS setup. If the hard drive is not being fully detected by CMOS, it is likely you are encountering a BIOS limitation. This issue can be resolved one of two ways.

  • How to enter and exit the BIOS or CMOS setup.

  • Obtain BIOS update from your manufacturer. It is only recommended you upgrade your BIOS if the update explicitly states that it resolves this limitation.

  • Utilize the DDO (Disk Drive Overlay) diskette included with the hard drive or obtainable through the hard drive manufacturer.

Computer utilizing MS-DOS 6.22 or lower

If you are currently running MS-DOS 6.22, Windows 3.x or lower do not support this size of hard drives.

Windows 95 and 98 and FAT16 do not support over 2 GB

If your Windows 95 or 98 computer does not recognize a disk drive or partition greater than 2 GB, refer to the following article.

  • Why am I only able to see a 2 gigabyte partition or drive?

Running Windows NT 3.5

Windows NT 3.5 does not support 8.4 GB or larger hard drives.

Original Windows NT 4.0 will not support hard drives over 8.4 GB on install

The original release of Windows NT 4.0 will not support drives larger than 8 or 8.4 GB on installation of Windows NT. To utilize larger hard drives, ATAPI.SYS must be copied from Service Pack 4 or obtained through our download site.

  • Why can’t I see over 8 GB with Windows NT 4.0?

OS/2 Warp 3 and 4 may be limited to either 3.1 GB or 4.3 GB

If your version of OS/2 Warp is not detecting a hard drive larger than 3.1 GB or 4.3 GB, we recommend you contact IBM for the latest Device Driver Pack.

  • Why can’t my computer boot with a hard drive over 33.8 GB?
  • Why does Windows 95 not support hard drives over 32 GB?
  • Hard drive help and support.