Paul Gu|blog

Thanks a ton

hey thanks you very much!!

Brilliant! Searched for ages, got loads of bullsh*t advice. Been working in IT for 20 years, never heard of diskpart. Thanks, worked a treat!

Diky moc super navod
Thx you very much…

BLESS YOU!!!!

Thanks a lot! That was exactly what I needed.

uhhhhh…. that hit the spot!

after the end of fdisk with /MBR i really didn’t have to work much with partitions, but after trying MAC on a cetain disk I just didn’t have any option within Vista install to remove GPT tag from disk. After searching the google and after I found countless useles tools and advices (funny, how sata disables any chance of using good old fdisk ) this comes as a salvation.
To be true, I am a little embarrased for not knowing diskpart – but in reality I never needed one until now.

many thanks for publishing this!

w00t!!!

Thanks, this is exactly what I’ve needed!

Hi Paul!!!

You are the best and you’ve made my day!!! – thx again!!

Tons of crap online to figure how to do that none of them are working or you have to buy some third part software!!! thx to bring a light on this unone (actually to me) dos command!

Sincerely yours

Marc

Amazing! I’ve never heard of diskpart either before. I was able to reformat MAC original HDD’s to NTFS for windows.

I have spent the nbest part of an hour trolling around the web trying to find how to sort this problem out.

Found 7 ways, one of which incuded complete linux install, the rest were even worse. Then found this.

Remind me to get you a sainthood

Thanks v much

Paul

I have a drive that has a 200MB partition that is “GPT Protective Partition” and the rest of the drive is 698.44 GB NTFS which is “Healthy (System, Boot…).
If I use your method will it erase all the data on the 698.44GB partition. I jusdt want to get rid of the GPT Protective Partition without loosing my data.
Thanks

It seems very powerful tip for many people.

will i lose all data from disk after that?
thx

ok any way its great tip:)

hey thankyou very much worked a treat your a God !!!

Wow, Thank you so much. I was about to strangle my programmer who I let borrow my new hard drive while he did craziness with his Linux and MAC setup. You saved a life today!

No problem….

Gracias, Amigo. Fubared and set up the disk on my Vista machine. Need to swap betwee the Vista and my work XP system. All of the information on teh internets found using the google was pretty much b.s. (as another poster mentioned). This was tres helpful.

Thanks again,
-Mike

Very nice post, lots of poor information out there, hopefully a few more links will drive your dead-on instructions to the top!

Thank you, thank you, thank you very very much!!!!

It helped me a lot. Many thanks and greetings from Switzerland.

No problem Guys …

Thanks again and again Mate, Ebayed a 500mb disk to find this GPT thing,
googled the solution in 2 mins.

Learn something new every day i say

Many thanks fo the helpfull advice, thought the new hard disk was for the bin, now its working.

WOW! I would have to say that turned out to be a lot easier than I was expecting! Thanks a million!

I LOVE YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!!

Thanks much, that did the trick!

Thanks so much! I was using an external drive as my backup disk for my Macbook, but needed something to transfer over files from one PC to another so I had to use it, but came across this error. Worked perfectly! Thanks!

Thanks

Take all the responses posted above and add a -ditto!!!!-

Thank you so much for pointing out the Diskpart and how to use it.
Really really appreciated.

Finally a use for diskpart! Thanks OP.

I had a WD 1TB MyBook connected via FireWire to XP box with the same issue as all the rest (I had been using it under OSX 10.5 without a hitch – of course).

I was about to reach for my http://sysresccd.org/ disc, but was too lazy to reboot and find this post in a google search – worked like a charm – TYVM!!!

I too have been doing M$ for 20+ years and never heard of DISKPART (and I’m a dos/batch file junkie), so I go curious and find this article that gives more detail on the DISKPART command, it’s scripting abilities (scarry thought there), and detailed explanations of the various sub-commands:

A Description of the Diskpart Command-Line Utility
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Fantastic

Let me heap my thanks on top of the rest! Saved a near-new Mac drive (and my bacon!…)

[...] GPT protective partition, so I imagine that is what the deal is huh? How do I change that? From here ….. [...]

This certainly is a great find.

Any advice for trying to read the drive, with Win XP, before killin the partition? I am trying to retrieve the data. Thank so much! -John Q

what a lifesaver!!

thank you!!!!!!!!

Nice advice! I had tried to use diskpart but I didn’t realize that I needed to ‘clean’ it first. Thanks a ton!

wow, genius, thanks and thanks again

[...] is GPT which WinXP 32 cant read, so if you have sensible data on it copy it elsewhere and use Paul Gu|blog � Blog Archive � How to delete GPT Protective Partition to get the normal older MBR on it or get Vista or WinXP 64bit to be able to read a GPT disk. [...]

DiskPart is very powerful, be careful this method will erase all data on the disk, so please backup your data first.

That made me feel so legit. I want to kiss you right now! Thanks.

Thank you very much. I could not figure this out until I stumbled across your posting. You saved me a lot of headaches.

Thanks! I LOVE YOU! I swear, I’ve tried the most complicated solutions and downloaded a helluva lotta free trial software to try to fix this wretched Ext HD of mine for since Nov. last year. This got it fixed in a jiffy.
Thanks, Paul! Cheers to a year since this post was erm… posted

Awesome. I was stuck with Mac format and thak God I found this site. Done in 10 seconds.

Thank you………

thank you for sharing. this tool is simple but amazing.. and you are diamond.

wow so glad i found this.your the man!!!thought i was gonna have to pitch it…but this worked so good ..

Been searching for this fix! Works great!! Thanks a lot!

I agree, and I’m the big fan of Open Source and sharing information ~~

Thank you!

thanks! works like a charm!!!

Thank you so much for the info, it worked for me. I was going nuts thinking that power supply was not sufficient.

Thanks. You are the best You help me a lot

I consider you to be a Great consultant instead MicroSoft. Thanks a lot. Your advise saves lots of time for me. Good job.

Since you are going to lose all the data, why not do a Low Level Format. Always works for me and quick too as long as you don’t use the full option and do the who;e disk.

armshead: Since you are going to lose all the data, why not do a Low Level Format. Always works for me and quick too as long as you don’t use the full option and do the who;e disk.

Low Level Format is not good hard drive, needs the utility tool from the disk manufacturer, and it’s slow too …

remember: “Low level format is always of LAST RESORT when you encounter HDD problems.”

Not at all Armshead, and thanks for sharing your opinion, and it’s good to know this alternative. IMO, LLF is used when the hard disk encounters hardware issue, and LLF does a lot more than DiskPart. DiskPart can still be considered as HLF and it just does the job at this point.

Thanks so much for these instructions!! Cleared my GPT partition that I did not want anymore perfectly as described. Looked all over for instructions that could work in XP Home or XP Pro and this was the best I could find! Thanks!!

[...] Don’t post unless you know what you’re talking about. DISKPART *CAN* help you. Here’s proof: How to delete GPT Protective Partition | Paul Gu|blog There’s plenty more like that to be found using google. [...]

thank you saved me pulling out my hair as an external usb drive previously used on a Mac wouldnt allow me to save a recovery file from Acronis that could be accessed by the recovery media. All down to a mac partition left over which remained after formating

This quick tip is getting hot …

well instructed – THANKS!

Paul, this was so easy to fix! Thanks a lot for sharing this solution! Peace.

haiying: I use command, but could not see the partition (i know it is there from Disk management), but could not see from dos command

‘list disk’ is to list disks, ‘list partition’ is to list partitions, which command did you use?

Dude, this is #137, Thank You very much!\
You made my day

It seems Micro$oft has poor documentation…

thank you, Sir.

Thank you very much, worked perfectly.

Excellent. Thank you.

Mike: How do i back-up my files if i can’t acess my GPT hard drive under XP?

Back up files on the system where you get GPT partition…

Under XP, diskpart and initialize it, then hook the drive back to “GPT” system to copy files back…

I cannot thank you enough. simple and to the point. Thanks again.

Thanks no. 152

Thanks dude! My HD was brand new from PC world.

nice…. do you how to remove gpt without wiping all data on the disk? pls help

I used my LACIE 500GB external HDD in my iMac but unable to use it on my XP Pc.its showing GPT Protective Partition in disk management.

as your suggested method if i run the DISK PART tool and initialize it via “clean” command then does it gonna format my external hdd???

I want to keep all the content stoed in the hdd and use the external HDD in xp – thats my ultimate goal..

Would appreciate your kind suggestion regarding this issue.

Thanks in advance

Ony: I used my LACIE 500GB external HDD in my iMac but unable to use it on my XP Pc.its showing GPT Protective Partition in disk management.as your suggested method if i run the DISK PART tool and initialize it via “clean” command then does it gonna format my external hdd???I want to keep all the content stoed in the hdd and use the external HDD in xp – thats my ultimate goal..Would appreciate your kind suggestion regarding this issue.Thanks in advance

See my comment #148, or you might live with GPT partition.

thanks a lot , i’m realy stuck with this gpt format…thanks once agin for this usefull comm.

Like everyone before has said, this was very valublue information and saved a hard drive for me. Thank you for taking the time to post this information!

Thanks a lot!!! Few words eager to hear!

GREAT

Thank you; it worked great!

Jorge

Even though I’m already the 170th person to tell you this, I still think its worth sharing with you that this is one hell of a tip!

Finally “opened” my external hard disc…

Thanks a lot!

I get to be person #172 expressing overabundantly flowing thanks! Bless you again!

Sweet! I too like the rest of the comments haven’t heard of diskpart. Now I can be cool like you! This was the number 2 Google search for me but the first one I tried! Took all of 20 seconds to bring the drive back to reality!

+karma for you!

Thank you so much for this solution.

Thank You!

This Blog Tip was first found in my Google
search…and for good reason; It’s answered
many, many prayers…

Keep up the great advice,

Thank-You,
Darryl

Thanks Paul. You make the internet what it should be, useful.

The Dawg

FireDawg: Thanks Paul.You make the internet what it should be, useful.The Dawg

I agree …

Thanks!!!

Thanks so much!!! The Force is with you!!!

Thank you very much. This was very helpful!!!

Thanks. Precise Instruction.

all 195 thnx’s i think r enough!!!one more from me…great help…u saved me a lot of headache

Thanks a Million “knowledge is power” after reading this it was so easy…thanksamillion

HI.. Paul

I have to say Thank you toooooooo ^^

You are the man.

Thank you again…. ^^

Perfect!! Simple and Useful.
You Safe my harddrive. Thanks you.

it’s 145am here in florida, i have to be at work at 830 in the morning, and I’ve been trying to get my computer to read this Simpletech external drive for HOURS… then i come across this page, and your solution fixes the problem in UNDER 5 MINS. All i can say is, many many thanks..

thanks man this helped a lot

Very useful! Thank you.

Genius!

Saves me a heap of grief and time!

Cheers

after i initialized the disk,, the disk become unreadable,,

Thanks! Helped a lot.

Probably no surprises what I’m going to say by now, but thanks so much for the clear, easy instructions! Saved me a lot of headaches

Paul Dewhurst: Was About to follow your instructions but before I did I thought I would give my XP install disk a try. My way works as well delete the partition with Windows install. Then just exit install. It changes the partition type to GP then the partition can be deleted with any partition tool. With this method no need to back up whole drive on a multi partition disk

This is great ~~ thanks for sharing the tips…

Wow! simple yet very effective. this is just what need.
I was about to give up… i could have been one of the I.D. 10 Tees!

among the tipsters yours was the easiest to follow!

Thanks Paul Gu!

Thanks, this was really helpful.

Thank you. I fortunately did not search for long. Worked like a charm.

Gold. Liquid gold. These instructions are tremendously clear. I wish you had written the rest of the internet.

e89: i recently bought a used external hard drive(from a friend using a mac). my pc reads the hard drive but when i used disk management, it says (Healthy GPT Protective Partition). How do i erase the data(if there’s any) without losing my data from my pc??? thx..

Please see comment No. 126, or back up your data in the driver first, then fix it and copy back all data to it.

I had never seen this type of partition before. Thank you for the extremely clear and accurate advice! Luckily for me this post came up first in my search, so next to no time lost here. Regards!

the procedure worked perfectly! two 750 GB drives converted from Mac to XP. Yet another RAID array is formed. Thanks a bunch. Cheers!

Thanks for the tip. I had never heard of DiskPart prior to this and I’m sure glad you could point me in the right direction.

You are welcome, guys.

That post has caused a disturbance in the force.

I was having a hard time with this WD passport HD. It was giving me GPT protective partition in the disk management in window xp. Everything seens to load fine but it doesnt show in my computer. Thanks to your post, I was able to reformat the hard disk. Thanks again!

Thank you soooo much!!

Thanks! Just what I’ve been looking for!
David from Hungary

Backup the data to your Mac where you plugged in, then follow the steps above to re-format the disk.

Thank you very much. You gave very clear direction and it worked exactly as expected. I appreciate you taking the time to post this fix.

Since everyone thanked you, I’ll thanks you too:

Thanks! =)

BRAVO!!!:) THUMBS UP!!!:) GREAT JOB:) GODSPEED:)

I had to use your tip on 4 drives i got off ebay. Thanks a ton! nice of you to assist.

thanks. i’m a pc guy teaching in a mac environment. i just used this on one drive, i have about 8 more to do so i can use them at home and work.

Just solved two days of headaches in 2 minutes.
You rule.

Thanks Paul!!!
It solved the problem in about 2 minutes ….

really helpful..!!
thanks!!!

Great article. To the point. Helpful.

Awesome, thank you very much!

Hay Paul, Thanks for that, I tried everything to get this drive working.
Cheers
Terry

Thank you very much! Great tech help.

You are my hero!
Thanks.
Don’t know how I got my HDD became GPT yet, but anyway I am very happy to rescue my drive in so simple steps.
Qing

Thanks so much this saved my flash drive, windows was only reading 200MB of my 8GB

Thank you so much my boss had trouble doing this, so i did it found this and fixed it in about 30 secs! Thank you!!

Thank very much. God bless you and take care !

Thanks a million!

damn, you’re good. just solve my problem with this.
i am servicing a client with this problem right now and i can’t go to disk mgmt properties because of this GPT thing.

my warm appreciation for this article. best regards

Hi, Paul. I’ve got a Vista platform computer – I’ve tried to apply your directions, but it won’t work as it keeps asking me for a disk number. Any ideas on how to solve this for Vista?

Thanks in anticipation,

Great post saved me a trip back to the people I purchased my gbt protected drive from!

Absolutely brilliant….i cant thank you enough paul…..you have saved my day.

THANK YOU!!!!!
Quickest fix ever, and saved me a 100km round trip to the place of purchase (they said I had to bring it back in!)

Thanks very much Paul,Cheers!

Thanks
Your instruction was very useful, I format my 500 GB seagate external disk in windows vista and when I went to my office, then my windows XP PC recognize the disk, but I can see it. The disk management tool showed me “GPT label”.
have a nice weekend
Raul

Thanks so much. I had apparently formatted by external hard drive as GPT with my Mac and couldn’t figure out why my PC wouldn’t recognize it. This solved the problem.

OMG it works…thank you so much….

Excellent, very helpful indeed!

I wish I could join you guys but my computer is still screwed. I got this error when trying to reformat, now my hard drive is completely toasted. I’m using Hirens Boot CD v10 and have tried everything. Reseting MBR and sector0, checked disk for errors, etc.

I use the cd bootable mini XP and enter dos. Im able to start diskpart and select and clean the disk. When i return to disk management the wizard pops up and wants me to initialize/convert. I do this but the disk still says “unknown” and to check the system log.

Someone PLEEEASE help me!

Thanks all for great comments….

Frickn SAWEEEEEEETT

Thx

It works well. Really practical stuff. Thanks a lot

Excellent! thank you very much…saved lot of time.
God Bless you.

Dear Friend, I will thank you VERY MUCH indeed.
you solve my problem in a few lines!!!!!

I wish to you all the best in this life.

Thank you

Paul, thanks to you I can use my external disks again.

hi thx man for big info
but i have problem in my usb sony 250 gb flash Drive
windows 7 cant see it and i cant do the steps on my usb

<>

If it’s not working in Windows 7, then try it in Windows XP.

BTW for those of you using vista you don’t need to go to the cmd prompt. just type diskpart in Start Sarch dialogue box.

you help me aloooooottttt
thanks a million.

Thanks!! The above information worked for me. I was really close to taking my hard drive back to the store.

A thousand thanks for a most helpful post. Wishing you the happiest of holidays.

This is a Xmas Gift!
My Lacie 500 GB is now back to work!
Thank you very much!

Thanks Paul , wiped clean from GPT to like brand new unallocated , now initialized & formatted back to ntfs
successful !!!! now ready to be placed in laptop for windows 7 & XP dual boot at last !!
Happy Xmas Paul Take Care & thankyou for this posting.

Found your site via a google search. Solved the problem with my Mac formatted disk.

Really helpful, thanks a lot!

Just a quick note to say you are, in a word, GREAT!!! So much research, misinformation, etc. Found your article and nailed it in less than one minute. You are the best, dude – keep it up.

thx,

jim

Many thanks !

Wow, that worked great, thanks for that!!

Thanks! So my years, and still a great help! I had to ‘google’ to get here, but it was worth a million!

Thanks a lot for the info. Unbelievable that this isn’t possible with the standard disk management panel.

Thanks a lot, that took care of it. Very easy when compared to some other sites requiring you to download utilities.

WORKS PERFECT!

just did what you said then created a logical drive
then poof! problem solved!

thanks!

Great post, 7 years in IT and the first time i encountered a gpt. concise, to the point and i learned something new!

I like to thank you for this post. I almost gave up on the idea of converting this WD “My Passport Studio” 500GB drive GPT formatted, my client purchased. I must admit there are of quirky ideas on how to do the conversion, but it all comes down to DOS. DOS has been and will remain the work horse of the computer world.

Thanks Again

[...] Diskpart… and I've been trying for like hrs… then i found this website… thank goodness… http://blog.paulgu.com/2008/01/06/ho…ive-partition/ [...]

Many thanks to you for sharing your knowledge with all of us. I bought my 500Gb Seagate Sata drive from an individual through craigslist and it was GPT Protected, he has yet to get back with me on how to clear this matter up. Thanks to you I have not lost my money nor my space. God Bless

Great!!!! thanks a lot!

Another happy man! New Free Agent drive was driving me nuts … and now – like all the others above… I’m in business!

You’re a life saver!!!! I had an external drive that had been formatted on a Mac that I then reformatted under Windows 7 but Windows XP refused to see it. Disk Management would see it but wouldn’t let me do anything with it but your page has solved all those problems in one go! Fabulous!!!!! Thanks!!!!!!

thanks you alot. I hope to have more useful ideas from your blog.

Hi Paul!
I just bought a 250 gb hard drive,and i can not install vista on it! It says”the selected file is of the GPT partition style”.Any idea how can i fix this? Thanks!

HI PAUL.
How can i get chinese words on YOUTUBE

Thanks with DISKPART!!!!!!!! I had no idea.

Dude, my friend plugged my WD external hard drive into his mac, which wouldnt recognise it, and now my windows won’t recognise it. How do I clean the disk without deleting all the data? I’m a dummy with computers so if you could put it in as simple a layman’s terms as possible (ie, step by step!!) I would be eternally grateful. I desperately don’t want to lose all the data on the hard drive as it’s all i’ve got. Thanks in advance for any advice you could give me.

Thanks for that, but I don’t understand how I can back it up to the local disk when my computer can’t see it? Any ideas? THANKS!

thanks a lot its work i am really very thank full to u guys.

Thanks bro.. nice tut

SWEET JESUS DAY LORD IN THE MORNING!!!!! I’ve got 4 1TB drives and this one has been giving me a TIME for a week! Like so many on here I got poor info time after time on the net and then stumbled on this! Man thanks and then some!!!!!!!! Good Day from NC!

@ Jamie – You need to create a new partition.

I have a question: when i do the list disk command only my primary disk is shown. I have 4 disks connected to my PC and none of them show up. I did a RESCAN and still only one disk. grrr.. oh well ill just have to wait untill i get back home to me mac Oh and it was the atvUSBcreator that created this partition in the first place.

Thank you so much! So simple and clear. 4 steps and you are done. We need more people like you online!!

Thanks Paul,

Saved me a trip back across town to plug a drive back into the Mac and erase it!

thanks a million for sharing this information!

Dang! This post has been actively commented for over 2 years! You rock dude! Thanks for the post. You saved me the aggravation. Should be #1 on Google!

Spot On! Thanks!

Thanks! Worked smoothly!

Fred: Unfortunately diskpart does not show removable memory (USB memory stick) as a drive so will not allow you to clear GPT on these devices.As a note, it was a Mac using GUID that created the GPT partition table.If you set the Mac to use MBR rather than GPT it avoids the problem and you can read the key on a Windows XP machine.This was the solution in my particular case.Cheers.

Thanks for sharing

Thanks that worked great.

What can I say but thank you lots.
Yet another reason not to use ex Mac drives