Seagate 3TB, Astone USB dock and GPT Loader: a (too) long (and painful) story.

Hi there,

So here is the story I purchased a 3TB Seagate drive (ST3000DM01) and a USB3 SATA docking station (Astone DOC-230). Package says "Disks up to 3TB" and compatible with Windows XP. Salesman praise both suppliers for quality and good service...

Then story turns sour... Disk is not seen in Windows XP... Astone claims it should work, do not provide any appropriate support and point fingers at Seagate.

Seagate point out XP limitations and says it should work by using DiscWizard. No it doesn't work, as I am not able to create 3TB, 2TB, 1.5TB or even 500GB partition... It just doesn't work, even after reboot and even when it says the partition creation process was completed successfully.

Now I am just about to throw away my 3TB and just buy 2TB because I KNOW IT WORKS. By the way I already spend $173 for the disk and $63 for the docking station...

Today I throw the problem at my IT guy and he says... Mmmmh there might be an option with Paragon GPT Loader but it's not sure. I guess he means not sure that it will work....

So here is my question to you guys: Shall I shell out another $20 in Paragon GPT Loader? Or will it work? Or not? And will I get any support?

Because it really sucks when you buy stuff and there is nobody to help.

Thanks

 

Sorry people are being so unhelpful, but I may be able to shed some light on this issue for you. First off, with the Paragon GPT loader you will only be able to recognize 2.2TB+ disks internally so the docking station will be of no use to you, but that being said you may be able to at least recognize the disk. Second, the issue may be with your motherboard specifically if it is an older model it may not recognize beyond the 2.2 TB limit. Third, if the software doesn't work for you, we do offer a 30 day money back guarantee. So at the end of it all, you won't even be out the 20 bucks if you purchase it, install it and configure the disk internally to be recognized. Hopefully that will shed some light on the purchase.

 

Thanks for your response. I need to clarify:

The reason I need to use the USB dock is because I want to use a this 3,5' HDD (3TB) and some other 3,5' HDDs on 2 laptops running Windows XP that I have at home.

They are IBM Thinkpad X61 and HP Compaq 6910p

So, it's impossible for me to link those disks directly to the MB.

Any idea whether Paragon GPT Loader will detect the disks through this USB dock?

I am wondering whether the USB dock contains some specific hardware (chipset?) that are critical to get the disk running properly (and GPT drivers?). Perhaps some docks are better than other at doing that? Or they all use the same chipset?... And do you think the laptop MB BIOS would have an influence in my case (I don't think so since USB is a standard protocol)...

Thanks for giving some insights.

 

Just as a point the Paragon GPT loader will only load internal disks, not external no matter how they are configured.