Trouble creating 3TB ext4 partition due to msdos-partition-table-imposed error

Question

I just bought a 3TB WD green drive, but when I try to partition in in gparted I get an error like:

======================
libparted : 2.3
======================
partition length of 5860530176 sectors exceeds the msdos-partition-table-imposed maximum of 4294967295

And when I try with Ubuntu "Disk Utility" I get a similar error like:

Error creating partition: helper exited with exit code 1: In part_add_partition: device_file=/dev/sdc, start=0, size=3000592982016, type=0x83
Entering MS-DOS parser (offset=0, size=3000592982016)
MSDOS_MAGIC found
looking at part 0 (offset 0, size 0, type 0x00)
new part entry
looking at part 1 (offset 0, size 0, type 0x00)
new part entry
looking at part 2 (offset 0, size 0, type 0x00)
new part entry
looking at part 3 (offset 0, size 0, type 0x00)
new part entry
Exiting MS-DOS parser
MSDOS partition table detected
containing partition table scheme = 0
got it
got disk
new partition
Error: partition length of 5860528002 sectors exceeds the msdos-partition-table-imposed maximum of 4294967295
ped_disk_add_partition() failed

Answer 1

The traditional partition table format used on PCs includes a 32-bit field to record the number of sectors a particular partition covers.

With 512 byte sectors, this sets the maximum partition size at 2TB (512 * 2³²).

If you need a partition larger than 2TB, you will need to repartition the drive using the GUID Partition Table (GPT) format for the disk. If you are not trying to boot off this new disk, you are unlikely to run into any compatibility problems.

Using GParted, you can do this by going into Device->Create Partition Table and select "gpt" from the list.