Like A Boss: How To Debate Effectively

A lot of people don't truly understand what debating means.  Some think it means arguing.  It doesn't.  Though you do present "arguments" in a debate, it doesn't mean you're "arguing".  Let's explore that.

Buying That First Home Round Two - Part 4

So now you have a sense of things.  The next thing to know seems obvious, but many people make a critical mistake when going hunting for a home:

Get Your Funding In Order.

Buying That First Home Round Two - Part 3

Now, let's talk about a somewhat controversial topic: short sales, and the #1 thing to know about them:

Banks Don't Really Like Short Sales.

Buying That First Home Round Two - Part 2

Hopefully you read the first article.  If not, you should.  There's a lot of good information there:

Do Your Own Research BEFORE Contacting a REALTOR

Assuming you've gotten this far, it's important you understand what you're up against in terms of what's out there.  Depending on your buying power, you may find lots of inventory or very little.  It really does depend on the metro, and in this current economy, a lot of homes are being taken by Chinese investors who are dropping 100% cash to buy the homes as an investment (and in some cases, to hide their income in another country).  What's left over is going to fit into a number of categories, and you should understand the differences.

Buying That First Home Round Two - Part 1

Many may recall years ago (around 2008) I attempted to purchase a home in Oceanside, CA.  That home was a quant device that seemed as though it just was mistreated by the previous owners.  I didn't understand the process, and I trusted way too much.  I learned a lot of lessons about what not to do and swore never to make those same mistakes the next time I was "ready".

Since coming to Washington State I've realized that, though I'm working harder than I ever have before, the opportunity and net cost of living are dramatically different.  This year, as a New Years Resolution, I resolved to do two things: (A) graduate college and (B) buy a home.  Both are in progress (I told you about Western Governors University), but let me talk about (B), and let's see if I can help you.

Gay Rights <> Civil (Race) Rights

I make the assumption that you're up on the recent news about Mark Zmuda, right?  No?  Let me enlighten you.  Then I'll explain why Seattle and certain news outlets are responsible for the very negative image that Western Washington has compared to the rest of the nation.

What is the "Parable Test"?

Previously, I mentioned something I refer to as a "Parable Test".  I'm now going to define this test and how it applies to everyday life.

In a simple definition, the measurement of the Parable Test is that something must meet at least one of four criteria (though ideally it would meet all of them): Quantifiable, Justifiable, Verifiable, Testable.  But what's that exactly mean?

Analyzing the Pacquiao/Marquez Feud

The boxing universe (if there is such a thing) waxes emotional about certain feuds.  Ward/Gatti, Ali/Frazier, Ali/Liston, Tyson/Holyfield, Leonard/Duran, and a whole host of others across various weight classes.  Many years from now, they will be hotly debating one of the most controversial feuds in history: Manny Pacquiao and Juan Manuel Marquez - two certified Hall of Famers.  But if you look past the fights themselves and analyze the fighters behind the fights, you'll start to see some obvious signs about why they seemed so matched...and you can easily predict how each would perform against certain other notable fighters.  First, let's look at the fights.

An Open Letter to the Westfield Group

This blog is not affiliated with, managed, sponsored, or written by Westfield. The logo above was linked from another blog to support the reader's regarding Westfield's influence on shopping.


Dear Westfield,

For the sake of discussion, call me "Franchise".  For the sake of demographics, I'm in my 30's, and fairly well traveled.  I consider myself a fan of technology and everything it grants a person, and I am not afraid to try new things.  That said, I don't like when good things change.  In those cases I am a strong resistor until I see that what has happened ends up better than what came before.  It is this that I want to speak to you about, and I hope this letter finds its way into the right hands of those who can make a difference.

Let's Talk About Western Governors University

This blog is not affiliated with, managed, sponsored, or written by Western Governors University. The logo above was linked from another blog to support the reader's confirmation that the source material matches the school for which they are searching.

"Diploma mill!!"

If you've done frequent searches online, this is likely the first thing you've seen on numerous sites, and it's got you curious whether or not this school is credible.

No time to read?  The answer: WGU is NOT a diploma mill.  Not even close to one.  As hard as it may be to believe, it's the real deal, and deserves a serious look for anyone wanting to continue their education.  (For the bullet reasons and to skip the below, go to the very bottom of the post.

WWE's Missed Opportunities

I'm starting to notice a pattern with WWE.  It's a pattern I've seen before: tons of talent, not used in an obvious or logical way.

I just got done watching RAW.  Alberto Del Rio was on commentary with Zeb Colter during what was arguably the best match of the night, a three-way tag match with Cena and the Rhodes Brothers vs. Damien Sandow and the Real Americans.  Never mind for the moment the fact that Cena is not main eventing the night.  Never mind the fact that the Real Americans are losing matches.  The tag team scene in WWE is at its hottest, and now is the time for them to strike and get some good bids out of it.

What we have here...are factions.

Why PG WWE Can't Work Long Term

Viewing this blog post is likely hazardous for someone who feels that the programming on television should always be child friendly.  It's an unfortunate state of affairs when you can't even have the kind of programming quality and separation that we used to have before the days of the internet, cell phones, tablets and other mobile devices.  Because you see, a lot of parents simply allow their technology to raise their kids.  They don't have a concept of proper parenting, and they lose sight of what really matters: Your kids should be watching certain types of programming.  You should (or may) watch other types of programming.  The two are oil and water.

The Problem With "The Cloud"

It's the going buzzword these days.  Everyone wants to move to this thing called "The Cloud" and apparently - allegedly - all of your storage worries go out the door completely.  In an era where mobile devices are gaining traction and fixed desktops are starting to be less available, it seems a logical evolution.

Only problem is that there is a piece people are missing, and until that piece is in place, "The Cloud" is really vaporware.

Really Bad Words: "Busy"

Everyone is fully aware of the various swear words that exist.  I won't repeat them here.  But did you know that they're not really "bad" words?  Perhaps words that certain audiences don't care to hear, or terms that may offend certain groups.  But they're not "bad" in that they don't do direct harm.  There are a number of words that do harm others, even if you don't realize they are harming.  The harm may be to a friendship, a relationship, an interview, a business meeting, or some other social event.  I call these Really Bad Words, and we're going to start with one of the worst: "Busy".

What?

Much Ado About Requirements

Maybe you're a Project Manager who is ready to attack my commentary.
Maybe you're a Developer who is ready to applaud it.

Either way, you're reading it, and that's progress.

If you work in IT, you've heard the term "requirements" before.  You have a basic idea of what requirements are, and what they're supposed to do for you, your customer and your team.  If you're on the end user side, you may have heard the term thrown around by various IT people in their quest to get you a solution that works for you.  The problem is that many people fail to understand how to avoid what I can only term "bad requirements".

Microsoft "Security Essentials" - Nope.

What Microsoft currently calls its "Security Essentials" suite is really, frankly, a scam.  At least, in the post-Windows XP world.  How they pulled the wool over people's eyes is brilliant, and I don't blame them for the approach.  However, calling it any sort of security "essential" is borderline false.  I can't complain since they don't charge for the product, but I felt it necessary to divulge things you may need to know about this so you can make informed decisions.

Viva Las Vegas

I attended a business conference from Sunday all the way through Thursday. The conference was in Las Vegas, & I admit to being someone over the excited about the idea of meeting people that I haven't interacted with in a long time. (And no, it's not at Golden Nugget.  I just like that casino.)

I was completely packed well ahead of time, and I had my clothes set out for an easy TSA walk through. I also had subscribed to the NEXUS program, and I tested that with flying colors (later).

By the way, this is what I look like right out of bed:

There was a time when I could simply walk out of the house never having touched any part of my head.  An ex girlfriend would get upset at me for having such fortune.  But those days are long since past I fear.

My packing skills remain peerless.  6 days worth of clothes, underclothes, toiletries, and assorteds, in a bag this size.  I thought I should include a DVD so you can get a sense of how not-big the bag is.

To help the matter, I got some McDonalds Bacon, Egg (White) and Cheese Biscuits, a large coffee and a small orange juice.  That gave me enough energy for the next 4 hours.

I breezed through TSA Pre-Check in 2-3 minutes.  In fact, they order you not to take your shoes off or to take anything out of the bag.  I found that rather interesting.  (more to this story on the trip back, though.)

In case you've never seen SeaTac (Seattle-Tacoma International Airport), once you get past TSA, this is what you're confronted with.  Quite visually appealing.

 Since I was terribly early, as usual, I figured I would prepare my system with the elixir that keeps me forever young: Starbucks' Shaken Iced Green Tea, Unsweetened.  No matter how hot it may be, you will be refreshed.  I AM straightedge, after all.

Once on board the plane it was a different ball game.  

Rather than local shots at the airport, I got to capture what I'm 98.76% sure is Mount Rainier, as the plane reached altitude.  I included the normal shot as well as one that was post-processed by the Nexus 7 (I didn't want to pull out the Galaxy S4 and have the flight attendant start yelling about phones on the plane).

I got asked more often than I care to admit why I would pay $50 to upgrade to first class on a 2 hour flight.  The answer is simple.  I come from the old school when airplane tickets were over $500 a piece, but with that you got roomy, comfortable seats, REAL meals, and a much more pleasant flying experience.  That's back when you had airlines like Northwest, Pan Am and TWA.  But I digress: I am one of those who is willing to pay for a comfortable experience, especially on shorter flights.  $50 is a small price to pay for that experience and I really wish they would consider doing it upfront at that price.  I mean look.

REAL glasses.  Clean trays.  A very well prepared veggie wrap.  This kind of stuff used to be standard on planes and I'm sad to see people settling for the garbage they put out now.  I on the other hand am more than willing to pay for this.

Anyway, I arrived fine, and National Car Rental as always took good care of me.  I'm an Emerald Club member, and under Alaska's Mileage Plan saved quite a bit of money.  The way it works: you rent a midsize car but can pick any of the cars currently on the Emerald Aisle, which include full size and SUVs.  Look at what they had waiting for me.  A Ford Fusion Titanium (non-Hybrid).  I got to feel right at home, although the car ran rather rough given it only had like 8,500 miles on it.  I'm assuming that's the EcoBoost engine; compared to Aston Marcus which purrs like a kitten, I wasn't impressed, but at least it was a familiar overall experience.

Here I am, approaching the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.  More on this scam hotel later.

My hotel reservation was very nearly messed up.  I had to pay out of pocket to at least stay the night.  Fortunately it got sorted Monday morning.  But I didn't like having to pay money.  I then proceeded to settle in and relax for the conference.  I did go to the local stores to get some food though; I wasn't paying the ripoff prices for snacks (more on that later).

Here are some shots from the event.

My tweet even made it up on their ticker.  How cool is that?

I also got to visit a past co-worker which was refreshing, and despite the nonsense traffic from the Mayweather/Canelo fight crowds, I did enjoy the fight itself.

Before leaving, I had to make sure to get a couple of shots from my hotel room window.  It was facing the strip, so I took full advantage.  First, a small panorama in the daytime (and unfortunately, since Mandalay Bay doesn't believe in washing their windows, it wasn't a very clear shot).

Then, I caught this rather appealing shot the night before I headed home.

 At the Las Vegas Airport, after turning in my car (which consisted of simply parking it and walking away, mind you), I then patiently awaited my flight home, capturing some of the signage (aka, a bunch of TVs slapped together in a crooked pattern).

All in all a great week.  I learned a lot and got quite a bit of useful information from the trip which I'm eager to share with the team.  This was the first time I'd gotten to attend one of these particular conferences though I'd helped others go, so it was enlightening.  A bit overkill with some of the fluff, but a great event nonetheless.

Tune in later for my review (aka REAMview) of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

The "Windows 8 Recovery" Bug

You probably ended up here from a Google Search.  Good.

And yes, it's a bug.  One that Microsoft has yet to fix.  And you will at some point find yourself encountering it.  In order to explain its resolution, I need to explain the bug, and the technology behind it in a way you can consume.

I'm a big "teach a man how to fish" fan.  So I'm going to first explain why you're having a problem, then I'll give you the definitive solution.  I'm almost confident that you've browsed many forums, help articles, and tech sites that give you plenty of "fixes", only to find none of them work.  That's why I have to teach you why the issue is an issue before I give the solution because, there isn't a single solution for everyone.

In a nutshell:  Windows itself is preventing the successful run of the recovery application.

A quick disclaimer.  The solution I put here is how I fixed mine.  I have seen a couple of other solutions, and I'll share them, but I honestly don't think they're the root of the problem, rather a symptom of the underlying issue, which is based on what I put here.  That's a theory only.  It at least will point you in the right direction.

About Shadow Copy Technology
Back in the days of Windows Millennium, Microsoft made common a technology that was later refined into what we know of today as System Restore.  This allows Windows to create hidden "snapshots" of your computer's configuration, so that you can "rollback" in the event of an issue or in the event software or hardware is installed that causes problems.  Initially, this was a standalone process, but it evolved over time into a hybrid technology that runs in the background, called Volume Shadow Copy.  The idea of snapshots is that a background service can evaluate and make a compressed replica of the entire structure of a disk much faster than a running program.  It also gets around the issue of locked files because the snapshot service is constantly evaluating everything on the computer.

About System Restore
System Restore allows you to store copies of fixed points in time of your computer so that you can roll back in the event of an issue or failure.  In concept, you can leave System Restore running for a quick and easy restoration of the computer's setup.  It will not save you from viruses, because if a virus infects your restore points, you will only end up restoring the same virus in place.  Rather, it is designed for instances where something you have installed or changed needs to be quickly undone, and the computer restored to a previous state.

Note that System Restore is NOT a backup, in that it cannot be transferred to any other computer or restored from a different version of Windows.  It also should not be the only safety net used to protect your Windows installation from damage or corruption.

How Windows 8 Is Affected
When Windows 8 is first activated, System Restore is running in the background constantly.  This is represented by hidden devices that are mounted where the shadow copies are stored.  The service that runs this process is started manually when the computer is booted, but doesn't terminate while System Restore is running.  The problem here is that while the Volume Shadow Copy service is running for System Restore, that service cannot then be used for other imaging processes that may make use of it.

The Solution
First, verify your failure is the same as mine.

The dreaded "The recovery image cannot be written" error.  Yours likely failed at 27% or thereabouts.  The reason mine failed earlier was because I stopped the Volume Shadow Copy service midstream, verifying a connection between what recimg.exe does and that service, to drill down the root cause of the error.

Second, disable System Restore on your C: drive.  This might cause you to panic, but I submit you can always turn it back on after this process has completed if you really want Restore running (and I do recommend having it run at least a little).  You'll want to disable System Restore AND delete all restore points.  This is to ensure that the Volume Shadow Copy service does not try to access anything.  You don't need to reboot afterwards.

For your Windows (C:) drive, highlight it and click Configure at the bottom to disable the Restore.  You can also do some Google searching for more information about this process.  It's not hard.  But I write this assuming you are somewhat versed in how to get to the above window.

Third, disable the Volume Shadow Copy service under the Services console.  Leave it set to Manual.  This will allow recimg.exe to call it independently when it starts to run.

Once the above steps have been completed, go ahead and re-run your command, and let it run.  Of course, make sure you have at least 8GB of space free on your drive (thus the reason for deleting old System Restore points).  This time, you should (hopefully) get a different result.

From here you can continue following the steps to create your USB recovery drive.

Also, it's possible that if you change your Windows 8 version, your OS may "forget" that there actually is a recovery partition already present.  In my case, I upgraded to the version with Media Center, and even though there's clearly 8GB reserved for the recovery partition, Windows 8 swears I didn't have one.  I'll delete it once I verify the USB drive is working fine.

Some other things I've read:

• Uninstall TrueCrypt
• TrueCrypt, depending on how you've got it working, may have a hidden volume defined that is choking recimg.exe for the same reason.  Uninstalling seems to be the solution, but obviously, I wouldn't suggest installing TrueCrypt in the first place.  Run it in portable mode.  
• BCD (Boot Configuration) in use as C:\bcd
• This can occur if you've got dual boot or other software that requires changes to boot configuration, such as partition managers and the like.  But under normal circumstances this folder shouldn't even exist.  Some have suggested running mountvolume.exe C:\bcd /d to resolve the issue, but all that does is map the folder to a disk.  it's better to resolve the reason for it being present (a quick reboot may do just that).

Revisiting the Delta Quadrant: "Basics: Part 1"

While Star Trek: Voyager was almost universally panned for being an overly sappy, somewhat lacking offshoot for the Star Trek franchise that had spanned decades, there were quite a few quality moments in the seasons.  Some comments that I read indicated that people often thought negatively about the character development of the crew; it seemed the only ones that the writers really cared about were Seven of Nine and The Doctor.  This is partially true, at least going by seasons 6 and 7.  But when you had episodes like "Meld" and the continuation in the dual-part "Basics", it's obvious that the writers could tell a great story when they were pressed to.

In "Meld", we saw Lon Suder being placed in jail for killing another crewmember, and Tuvok learning the hard way that Suder was simply an over-violent individual.  The episode makes it seem as though this is a black-and-white judgment of a crime and a criminal that seemingly has no heart.  But "Basics" teaches us the reason the Maquis is so dangerous - and the flaws of Starfleet.

"Basics" begins with what seems to be an earnest outreach from Seska to Chakotay.  The message implies that Chakotay's son is in danger from Culluh.  After some internal debate - and soul searching with his father in a spirit form - they decide to investigate.  Stumbling across one of Culluh and Seska's aides in the Kazon who has been gravely injured, Chakotay is informed that Seksa has died.  The injured Kazon provides Culluh's codes and a map to get around the Kazon fleet.

On the way, Voyager is ambushed by Kazon, and it's obvious from the attacks that there is something not quite right.  Here's where the problems start.

1. The Kazon specifically target the secondary command processor.  Yet Janeway, Kim, Tuvok, Chakotay, or Torres...not ONE of them makes the connection of what would be impacted by the loss of the processor.  Considering that processor is apparently how the self destruct is managed, this is simply stupid writing.  Kim even goes so far as to call it a "non-critical system" - seems prety darn critical!
2. The injured Kazon takes a metallic syringe from his large toenail, and injects himself with it, apparently triggering a chemical reaction that causes a large explosion.  It's funny that Odo can detect disparate chemicals and make the connection (DS9: "Improbable Cause") and he knows nothing about chemicals or biology, yet the Doctor AND Tuvok missed this blatant clue!
3. When Suder offers to support the ship's aeroponics, and presents his findings to Janeway, he uncharacteristically (based on his mannerisms in "Meld") pleads with her to consider his offer.  Even worse, Janeway seems absolutely inconsiderate to what he wants to do, even though they always need food.  
4. When they are stranded on the planet, Janeway directs Kes to keep people from going in the caves, and by her tone, she is making no exceptions due to Hogan's death.  Yet, Chakotay blatantly endangers members of the crew by directing them into the cave.  Neither Kes or Tuvok question this breach of orders.
5. Has anyone noticed that the bugs that Janeway offers to the crew, look remarkably like tube grubs (DS9: "Ferengi Love Songs") and the very unappealing worms from TNG: "Conspiracy"?
6. When the Doctor reativates himself, and asks the computer for bio scans, the computer indicates there is "one Betazoid".  Given he's the Doctor, and given he's part of the computer, AND given he should know all members of the crew and their physiology, why does he not make the attachment that the Betazoid must logically be Suder?

A lot of plotholes, to be sure.  It was still an exciting episode at times, and Lon Suder was one of the best characters in the DS9 universe.  The character development was through the roof, too.

Large Capacity Drives and Windows: "746GB of Doom"

You probably ended up here from a Google Search.  Good.

It's extremely probable that you bought a snazzy new 3TB or greater drive, in the hopes of loading all of your "legally purchased" movies and music to it, so you can stream to all of your mobile devices in a nirvana of media gold.

Only problem is, Windows swears your drive only has 746-ish GB of storage.  So you assume the drive is defective.  It's not.  In fact, it's your hardware that's the problem, and we really should blame computer and accessory manufacturers (such as Seagate, Western Digital, AMD, Intel, etc) for not having what I consider necessary disclaimers.

I'm a big "teach a man how to fish" fan.  So I'm going to first explain why you're having a problem, then I'll give you the definitive solution.  I'm almost confident that you've browsed many forums, help articles, and tech sites that give you plenty of "fixes", only to find none of them work.  That's why I have to teach you why the issue is an issue before I give the solution because, there isn't a single solution for everyone.  It depends on your hardware.

In a nutshell: your hardware is too stupid to read the capacity properly because it's stuck in the Dark Ages.

"but I just bought this computer!!" good.  That'll make it easier to fix your issue, because you'll have less steps.  On the other step, if your computer was top notch back when Apple was on the verge of going out of business, I suggest you upgrade.  There's no reason not to.  Desktops can be had for under $300, laptops for under $600.  You don't need state-of-the-art, but you do need to be recent.  Here's why.

Storage History
Back in the 90's the concept of cylinders, sectors, and blocks was a very simple and easy method of "telling" a drive how much storage it had.  Most common users never needed to care about this metric, but if you needed to run tools, you might have heard the term "bad sector".  This indicated a problem with one of the parts of the drive that data was stored on, and just about every operating system had tools to correct these errors.  Meanwhile, the BIOS (think of it as the "brain" of your computer.  It tells your hardware and software how to talk to each other) did not advance rapidly to consider higher levels of storage.  It was not unheard of to think that 160MB of disk storage was a big deal, and it was....back when programs barely took 1MB.  Now, most programs can easily take up to 500MB to 1GB or more depending on the program.

Larger disks yielded opportunities that people didn't have before.  Unfortunately, the hardware and software did not advance fast enough to keep up with the need for greater storage.  Windows Millennium (for those that can remember) and operating systems at that time could barely tap more than a certain amount of storage, and were limited to what file sizes could be accessed.  Windows XP and Windows 2000 helped this along a bit, but it was really (ironically) Windows Vista that opened the door to more possibilities.  It was the first operating system where the idea of UEFI was discussed as the next evolution of BIOS.

Where standard BIOS was akin to rubbing sticks together to make fire - functional but primitive - UEFI is more akin to using urine as an electrical conductor; natural, though still crude, and requiring very little resource to manage.  It allows the hardware to address more storage than the older BIOS, and as such, allows computers to make use of the greater hardware.

Then you run into the motherboard itself.  Older motherboards supported older connector types; any computer purchased within the past decade should easily be able to tap into SATA connections.  SATA provides a much easier way of connecting drives to the board, and faster throughput speeds; but beyond the connector type, there are different SATA flavors.  A large capacity drive is likely going to support SATA III, which boards within the past 3 years should support.  That means if your computer is older than that, your drive will work, but not nearly as fast as it could.  Some drives may even compel you to apply jumper settings to essentially "throttle" the drive own to the lower speed your board supports.  Rather than fumbling with jumpers, let me give you a small tidbit of advice: just upgrade.  Seriously.

While UEFI deals with and relieves the hardware challenges, you still have the software challenges.  The reason for this: The Master Boot Record, or MBR.  Known to old hardware technicians for decades as the easiest, simplest and least brain taxing method of configuring drive partitioning, it also was limiting to the operating system, as the MBR did not allow for supporting disk volume sizes greater than 1.5TB.  What throws people is the name: Master "Boot" Record, which still limits you even if you don't plan to boot from the disk.  Thus the GUID Partition Table, or GPT, was introduced.  I would point out that GPT was supported in Apple's Mac OS for quite some time, but rarely used, since UEFI did not get introduced but within the past few years.  Windows did not catch up with both until Vista, but Windows by design wants to do everything with MBR because the operating system leans towards that by default.  Even in Windows 8 it is not smart enough to detect drive size when making the decision.

The net effect of the above is a crapshoot that may reveal itself as a 746-ish GB drive.  Even though it is supposed to support 3TB/4TB.

The Solution
The answer to this depends on your hardware.  I will first tell you what WON'T work, then talk about what will.  All of this assumes you have a newer computer.  If you have an older computer, half of these suggestions won't work for you.  You need to upgrade.  If you're running an operating system lower than Windows Vista Service Pack 2, you need to upgrade.  (and frankly, there's no excuse for you not being on Windows 7 by now.)

First, don't bother trying with an external housing or USB-SATA cable.  Most people will be tempted to do this to try and set the drive up, or perhaps they plan to leave it there, or perhaps they don't want to put it in a computer.  Don't do this.  Why?  While you could find an enclosure that would support the drive, they're significantly more expensive, for less value.  Also, you want to make sure you're truly seeing the drive for what it's supposed to be, and the best way to do that is to install it directly into the computer.  This isn't to say it's impossible to work external, but the #2 edict of troubleshooting is process of elimination: remove all other variables, and whatever you're left with must be the cause.  (FYI, the #1 edict is Occam's Razor: The easiest answer is usually the correct one.)

This doesn't apply to a NAS device, because a NAS has a built-in operating system and hardware and, provided the box marks it so, should properly support the larger sizes.

Second, DON'T format the drive if it's not installed in the computer.  You can correct this but it's just wasting time.  Again, you want to be directly connected to make sure the right size is reported.

After considering the above, you should do the below, in the exact order.

First, install all Windows and hardware updates.  Even if you have to go to the manufacturer directly (which I had to do.  More on that later).  Why?  Because often, the hardware vendor will have shipped a device without UEFI and with an older chipset that doesn't support large storage, but publish an update so you can add the support.  You'll want to make sure all of these updates are applied, especially BIOS updates.

For AMD Chipsets you will almost certainly need to download the latest drivers from their site.  DO NOT just trust the computer manufacturer's website.  In my experience, which was a Gateway, they did not include chipset drivers in the Catalyst package, even though it said it was included.  The chipset drivers were not added until I got the package from AMD directly.  You need to make sure that your driver reads as AHCI.  This is critical.  If you aren't able to locate an AHCI driver, your board may not support the larger drives.

For Intel Chipsets you will likely need to make sure that Intel's Rapid Storage Technology software is installed.  This software essentially acts as a driver for the chipset that allows it to address larger storage pieces.  Many online forums have alluded to the need for this.  But make sure you actually have Intel (it should be a sticker on the computer), because if it's not Intel and you use Intel's driver scan, you will blue screen.

Second, install the drive into the computer. If it's a small form factor machine you may need to permanently (or temporarily) remove the CD/DVD drive.  In my case I have no need for an optical drive in the computer since external ones are around $20 and will do for the one-off disk access I need, so I removed the optical drive and got special mounts to load the storage drive in its place.  That gives me a primary disk of 500GB and a storage disk of 3TB (2.8TB available).  MAKE SURE YOUR COMPUTER IS POWERED OFF AND UNPLUGGED FOR A FEW MINUTES BEFORE DOING THIS!!

Third, boot into the BIOS.  Different manufacturers use different keys to do this.  It might be Delete, might be F2, might be F6.  Should tell you near the bottom when it's booting up.  The BIOS should have a blue-ish look; this is how you know it's UEFI.  If it's jet black with ugly yellow or gray or green text, you're on the older BIOS and you need to upgrade.  A BIOS upgrade is always downloaded from the computer manufacturer, and only takes a few minutes to do.  Also, if you have UEFI, make sure AHCI is enabled on your disks.  It should have such a setting though it may have a funny name.  Again, consult your computer manufacturer for questions about this.

Fourth, reboot the computer and let it load into Windows.  At this point you should be ready to set your drive up if everything was done correctly.  You'll need to go into Computer Management/Disk Management; Windows 8 has a different way of going about getting there, but if you can right-click on Computer and hit Manage, that step should work on every Windows OS.  You may get prompted to continue, go ahead and accept.  Then select Disk Management under Storage, and let it load.  You should then see something similar (but not exactly identical) to the below:

Notice that while my Disk is the proper size, I have three separate "chunks".  These are partitions that I've created to store different data.  The data lives on the same physical storage, but they are accessed individually.  In your case, you should end up with a Disk of the proper size, with a single "Unallocated" chunk.  As long as the size is close to correct, you're good to go. It will always be slightly lower than the storage on the sticker due to the way storage is calculated; do some searching for more info on that because it's TLDR material.

If you've gotten this far, congrats.  You've resolved your issue.  At this point I'm assuming you know how to do partitioning and drive setup, but if you don't, there are plenty of resources on the web about it.  This is only to resolve the short space issue with larger disks.