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Since my previous hard drive has crashed I want to do a new install of Ubuntu server 16.04 on a brand new large 3 TB hard drive. The drive is detected by the computer and mounts perfectly in a version of Ubuntu Desktop 16.04 and even the now crashed Ubuntu Server 14.04 so there's nothing wrong with the drive.

For some reason the Ubuntu server 16.04 installer fails to detect the presence of the large drive. It does find USB sticks, smaller drives and whatever other storage. I was able to install Ubuntu server 16.04 on a 320 GB drive but I still prefer to have it on the 3 TB drive. I've tried to format it to ext4 and btrfs. Tried it with predefined partitions and also with a completely empty drive. But it doesn't make any difference. The drive is an external drive.

How can I make the installer to detect the large drive or if not possible why does it fail to detect the large drive?

wie5Ooma
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  • You have to change the partition table for that 3 TB drive and select gpt this will allow the drive to work. – Alex Lowe Jun 22 '16 at 14:28
  • Thanks, If I recall it correctly I've tried that already but I'll look into it again. – wie5Ooma Jun 22 '16 at 14:31
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    This might also help http://askubuntu.com/a/85857/400278 – Alex Lowe Jun 22 '16 at 14:39
  • Which one do you have, UEFI or a BIOS? – Alex Lowe Jun 22 '16 at 14:44
  • I've tried it on a UEFI based laptop and I want it to work on a BIOS based desktop computer. – wie5Ooma Jun 22 '16 at 14:46
  • It should work on both type of systems. I have a 3 TB SAS drive that is formated with the gpt partition table and is running on a BIOS based system. – Alex Lowe Jun 22 '16 at 14:48
  • Well, I tried it with a gpt partition table and the installer fails to detect the hard drive on two different systems. Is it possible that the 32-bit installer has problems with the 4K sector size on this drive or something similar? – wie5Ooma Jun 24 '16 at 17:16

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