06
Jan
2008
How to delete GPT Protective Partition
Why we need to delete GPT protective partition?
In Windows XP Professional, you cannot access or modify GPT disk, but you can convert a GPT disk to MBR by using the clean command in DiskPart, which will delete GPT protective partition and remove all data and partition structures from the disk.
Warning: The steps below will erase all data on the GPT disk, please backup your data first.
- You might see HD Drive in GPT status on Disk Management.
- Go to DOS command line (click on "Start Menu", then "Run", type in "cmd" in textbox, and hit "OK")
- Type in "DiskPart" in command line.
- Type in "list disk" in command line to show all disks in this machine.
- Use "select" to set the focus to the specified partition.
For example "select disk 1". - Use "clean" command to remove GPT disk from the current in-focus disk by zeroing sectors.
- Go back to Disk Management, you can see GPT disk is "Not Initialized" now.
- Within Disk Management, right click on disk info, choose "Initialize Disk", You can see GPT disk is "Unallocated" now.
- Right click on disk info, choose "New Partition…", follow Partition Wizard and format it. Now you are able to use the disk in Windows XP.
Thanks a ton
Hey thanks heaps for that – we were pulling our hair out!
hey thanks you very much!!
No problem…
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!
Hi Paul,
Great post. After failing to intitalize disks with Vista (apparently Wetern digital has yet to create software compatible with Vista) I tried to make one GPT. Bad Idea. Disk Part helped me fix it and I will use XP to init from now on. Thanks!
Diky moc super navod
Thx you very much…
Great! weldone! Nice and simple.
BLESS YOU!!!!
Thank you all
.
Thanks a lot! That was exactly what I needed.
Thank you very much! That’s exactly what I’m looking for! Diskpart – something magic around us
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!
Brilliant !!! Thank You Thank You Thank You
w00t!!!
Thanks, this is exactly what I’ve needed!
after a TON of website mis information, your fix took me 30 seconds. thank you!!!
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
No problem all.
Great, a lot of people find this is useful….
Amazing! I’ve never heard of diskpart either before. I was able to reformat MAC original HDD’s to NTFS for windows.
This is Amazing and it earned a place in my folder that I call Flint Important. Been in IT for more than ten years i never heard of disk part either Well done & this is cool beans!
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
Thankd a million, saved my day
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
Mac OS X Leopard creates a GPT instead of MBR on a connected USB disk. Your tip saved my day, thanks !
It seems very powerful tip for many people.
Amazing! After searching forums for a half hour and downloading useless apps, I finally found this post. Where have you been all my hard drive’s life?
will i lose all data from disk after that?
thx
Hi Kanyball,
Yes, all data will be erased!! Backup all data in that disk to another disk before you do this.
ok any way its great tip:)
Brilliant! Thank you very very much
hey thankyou very much worked a treat your a God !!!
Thanks for sharing, it really works.
You’re good…..
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!
THANK YOU! Was pulling out my hair trying to find a solution to getting rid of a GPT partition on a drive I’m working on! I owe you one! Thanks again!
No problem….
THANK YOU!!! I Just bought an external HD and it wasn’t compatible with my XP2 until I found this! I was just about to return it! GREAT RESOURCE!!
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
Thanks man!
I looking a long time how I can delete gpt partition.
Very nice post, lots of poor information out there, hopefully a few more links will drive your dead-on instructions to the top!
Thanks heaps for this solution, greatly appreciated!
Thank you, thank you, thank you very very much!!!!
Great, worked a treat many thanks….Now the prob i have is the disk is coming up with I/O error….. I dont suppose you know of a way to fix these? Or is that the end of my hard drive?
Cheers
Chris
It helped me a lot. Many thanks and greetings from Switzerland.
you are so awesome, i bought this 120 gb sata HD for my laptop for 25$ and i couldn’t for the life of me format it, but now i do
thanks
jackie
No problem Guys …
Thanks a ton mate. I’ve got a laptop harddrive out in an enclosure connected to my PC and it was doing my head in that I couldn’t install an OS… it only made it worse that 90% of the internet was trying to assure me that you can install vista on a GPT protected partition no worries…. my ass you can…. It totally supports it… My ass it does…
You’re a lifesaver.
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
Thanks Mate
Many thanks fo the helpfull advice, thought the new hard disk was for the bin, now its working.
YOUR AWSOME!!!
WOW! I would have to say that turned out to be a lot easier than I was expecting! Thanks a million!
Done this, but now the disk doesn’t show up as a volume in the top part of disk manager (and still doesn’t show in Windows Explorer). It shows in the bottom part, but i can’t change its drive letter in the bottom part.
I’m dealing with an external hard drive that I reformatted to use with Time Machine for my Mac (unsuccessfully) and now want to go back to using as backup for my Windows XP PC
I LOVE YOU!!!! THANK YOU!!!!
Thank you very much…. u r genius
Thanks much, that did the trick!
thanks alot
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!
Sweet! Thanks Man!
Thanks
Like others, I spent a good hour searching the web, pulling out my hair, and talking to myself, looking for an answer. How can such a simple answer be so well-hidden?
I think I want to have your love child, although my girlfriend (and science) might have issues with that.
Suffice to say…thanks.
Take all the responses posted above and add a -ditto!!!!-
Thanks a lot!!!
I was ready for the mad-house before I found your tip
Thank you so much for pointing out the Diskpart and how to use it.
Really really appreciated.
You’re my hero. Thanx!
Finally a use for diskpart! Thanks OP.
thank you so much. worked like a charm
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
Thanks for comments
, this little tool is not well known to public, but it very powerful and useful.
Fantastic
Awesome – thanks for the tip. I had never heard of DISKPART before and I thought I was cool. Anyways, you saved me after a Mac format.
Let me heap my thanks on top of the rest! Saved a near-new Mac drive (and my bacon!…)
Thanks!!! I had a Netgear SC101 go south and I thought the drives went with it. This fixed it!!!
[...] GPT protective partition, so I imagine that is what the deal is huh? How do I change that? From here ….. [...]
Tats brilliant
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
Another vote of thanks. Worked to allow me to use a Mac disk in my pc.
what a lifesaver!!
U the star. Thanks alot.
thank you!!!!!!!!
thanky you very much, best answer i got, hope its ok to post it also on my site, http://www24.at.
Nice advice! I had tried to use diskpart but I didn’t realize that I needed to ‘clean’ it first. Thanks a ton!
What a Xmas Gift!!! Big thank you!
wow, genius, thanks and thanks again
thanks a lot
[...] 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. [...]
this one is effective good work:)
DiskPart is very powerful, be careful this method will erase all data on the disk, so please backup your data first.
Thank a lot for helping me to delete GPT partition on my hard disk. Your site is more interesting and admirable to help people in the field of Computer Sciences. Thank again!
That made me feel so legit. I want to kiss you right now! Thanks.
Many, many thanks for a clear and effective solution
Thank you very much. I could not figure this out until I stumbled across your posting. You saved me a lot of headaches.
Thank you so much . i love you
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
Thank you all, this post is one year old now, and I’m really happy that it helped many people and it keeps helping more people.
It’s my pleasure to share it
.
Awesome. I was stuck with Mac format and thak God I found this site. Done in 10 seconds.
Hi,
thanxs for the info: clear and easy to use.
Thank you………
Many thanks
thank you for sharing. this tool is simple but amazing.. and you are diamond.
thank you. this tool is very simple but amazing. and you paul is a diamond.
wow so glad i found this.your the man!!!thought i was gonna have to pitch it…but this worked so good
..
Thanks a Bunch.
You now have HOMEBOY status here in The Bronx, NYC.
good stuff.
Been searching for this fix! Works great!! Thanks a lot!
Thanks. I feel such sharing of knowledge is one of the feature of the eutopian socialistic society where knowledge is for everyone and is for free. Internet has done a great job and people like you are are serving a great cause without any greed.
I agree, and I’m the big fan of Open Source and sharing information ~~
amazing, simple and just worked! thx!
Thank you!
Does not work with USB flash drives!
thanks! works like a charm!!!
Have you tried this tool under Vista?
Clean it under Vista, then initialize it under XP …
Thank you so much for the info, it worked for me. I was going nuts thinking that power supply was not sufficient.
Many thanks for this info. Nailed the problem in no time where before, the MS Help just led me round in circles.
Thanks. You are the best You help me a lot
No problem ~~
I consider you to be a Great consultant instead MicroSoft. Thanks a lot. Your advise saves lots of time for me. Good job.
Thanks, lol.
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.
Thanks alot, I had this external WD disk lying around which my friend(who uses a Mac) had been using. Since Macs want to do everything different I could not get the disk clean! Always this 200mb partition in the way. Your article fixed the problem in 30s, thanks alot!
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.”
The so called Low Level Format routine offered on manufacturers support disks is a perfectly acceptable method of returning a disk to its factory state. There is nothing sinister, “bad” or “last resort” about it. The Maxtor program which I used to use
offers an option of “first 300Mb and last 100Mb only” This takes hardly any time at all.
LLF is routinely used by sellers of second hand disks.
The method I always use now uses Paragon Partition Manager Pro and take less than 2 minutes from start to finish, and will work on any disk whatever the format.
Right click on the GPT disk in the list and select “view/edit sectors”
Highlight the first byte and hold down the zero key. The program will zip through the first two blocks in seconds, Click save. Close the program. Re-open it and you have a blank disk.
This is my “first resort”. I’m sorry if it offends Paul Gu but a thread which has attracted 120 posts obviously has plenty of people looking for a simple answer.
<
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 for the awesome tip! Luckily I found your advice before I tried any other way of getting my HDD back to normal.
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!!
thanks…helped alot!!!
[...] 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 so much for the info!!! You rock!!!
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
dude, i am number 129 to say Thank You!
This quick tip is getting hot
…
u rock, thanks!
well instructed – THANKS!
brother, you saved me! I didn’t know what to do about this issue and you DEFINITELY helped me out! God bless!
Paul, this was so easy to fix! Thanks a lot for sharing this solution! Peace.
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?
Thanx! It helped me a lot!
Dude, this is #137, Thank You very much!\
You made my day
Dude, this is #139, Thank You very much!\
You made my day
It seems Micro$oft has poor documentation…
This is useful, thanks.
thank you, Sir.
thx, you saved me plenty of time not zero-ing my whole 1.5 TB drive
Thank you very much, worked perfectly.
thanks its perfect
Excellent. Thank you.
How do i back-up my files if i can’t acess my GPT hard drive under XP?
Back up files on the system where you get GPT partition…
Under XP, diskpart and initialize it, then hook the drive back to “GPT” system to copy files back…
A hundred people have said it already – but thanks
Really helped me out.
I cannot thank you enough. simple and to the point. Thanks again.
thanks buddy!
Thanks no. 152
Tanks !! People like you give such value to Internet !!! Really helped me !
Thanks dude! My HD was brand new from PC world.
thanks for magic ways, so my hdd can be use again
nice…. do you how to remove gpt without wiping all data on the disk? pls help
Please see the comment #148
I used my LACIE 500GB external HDD in my iMac but unable to use it on my XP Pc.its showing GPT Protective Partition in disk management.
as your suggested method if i run the DISK PART tool and initialize it via “clean” command then does it gonna format my external hdd???
I want to keep all the content stoed in the hdd and use the external HDD in xp – thats my ultimate goal..
Would appreciate your kind suggestion regarding this issue.
Thanks in advance
[...] Pēc veiksmīgas veco datu atjaunošanas izdomāju HDD noformatēt uz NTFS, bet šeit radās jauna problēma: iekš HDD paliek “GPT Protective Partition” partīcija kuru M$ Vista ļoti smuki saprot, bet XP visas partīcijas izskata par “GPT Protective Partition”. Tad nu nācās gūglēt tālāk, un iemācīties, ka iekš Windows ir tāda komanda (Programma) kā DiskPart. [...]
See my comment #148, or you might live with GPT partition.
Perfect thanks Paul!
Tried to connect external Hitachi Deskstar 320 Gb to Lenovo T60 via usb. Good tip!
thanks a lot , i’m realy stuck with this gpt format…thanks once agin for this usefull comm.
Just spent 30 minutes holding for Seagate and found your site while listening to their awful musak. Whiped out the GPT partition per your instructions while their tech guy was giving me directions on where to send the drive back for repair. Thanks much! –RH
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!
My pleasure to share this tip…
Thanks a lot!!! Few words eager to hear!
Thanks dude…quickest fix ever!
GREAT
Thank you; it worked great!
Jorge
Mr Gu you just saved my day and lost of valuable time!
Bless u!
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!
Thanks all of you, I like the comments
I get to be person #172 expressing overabundantly flowing thanks! Bless you again!
My removable usb drive all of a sudden became write protected…
Looked for days for a way to remove the protection…. NADDA.
Until i found this info…. moved the drive to an XP system and was able to recover the drive in under 2 hours!!!
THANX A MILLION!
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!
Thanks a Million!
What did we do before the internets!
My problem was that I had a drive that was previously used for Mac Time Machine so it came up as GPT Protectve Partiition.
Your solution fixed it in seconds so once again thankyou.
+karma for you!
Paul – exactly what I needed, worked like a charm!
Thanks!
Thank you so much for this solution.
Thanks a lot. I can now use my new drive with no problem. Cooool.
Thank You!
Thank you so very much!
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
man that was just what i needed. thanks a bundle!
keep it up
Thanks Paul. You make the internet what it should be, useful.
The Dawg
Thanks a TON! Why can’t Windows Disk Manager just do it the way the Apple one can?
I agree …
Hi, your method by far is the best and least complicated ; without installing any software.
I bought a hard disk media player and was formated by vendor with Vista…..and got this GPT problem which was unable to access via XP.
Media Player instruction needed the HD to be reformated to FAT32…. and was unable to access the HD until i got to see your instruction.
Thanks a million !!!
Thanks!!!
Hi Paul, i’ve just bought a hard disk from a pal, and it was formatted in GPT. Added in google “can’t format sata disk gpt protective partition” y fall into your site. Simple incredible, in just 30 seconds. Now my HD is being formatted to NTFS while i’m writing this text. Thanks Forever!
Thanks so much!!! The Force is with you!!!
Paul,
Thanks for this tip. I encountered a GPT protected issue when I tried to use my 80gb USB drive with my mac. After the lock, I couldn’t get it to do any thing.
Your tip/technique, saved me from literally tossing out the hard drive, and chalking it up to an ID-10-T error.
Thank you for this!
Thank you very much. This was very helpful!!!
Brilliant!! Solved our problem in less than 30 seconds … thank you sooooo much!
Thanks. Precise Instruction.
Cool, Thanks for the tip!!!
worked perfectly!!
all 195 thnx’s i think r enough!!!one more from me…great help…u saved me a lot of headache
Thank you a lot !! very useful tip !!
^^
Thanks a Million “knowledge is power” after reading this it was so easy…thanksamillion
Thanks a lot, very useful.
HI.. Paul
I have to say Thank you toooooooo ^^
You are the man.
Thank you again…. ^^
Awesome!
THANK YOU!!!
Perfect!! Simple and Useful.
You Safe my harddrive. Thanks you.
Its realy lesson of the day , Thanks.
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 so much! really solved my problem!!
thanks man this helped a lot
Thank you. Not even the tech help at Aluraket could help me figure out why I couldn’t use the harddrive and it is theirs.
Very useful! Thank you.
10x man. U r a genius ….
Genius!
Saves me a heap of grief and time!
Cheers
Your 210th happy customer! Thank you.
after i initialized the disk,, the disk become unreadable,,
Clear concise instructions that worked. It just doesn’t get any better.
Thanks.
Thanks! Helped a lot.
thanks a lot. that made it so much easier. It saved me buying a new HDD.
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
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…
Thank you very much. Your clear and simple directions saved me a lot of hours of aggrevation. Thank You.
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!
Brilliant, worked a treat!! Thank You!
Thanks, this was really helpful.
Thanks this was really helpful.
Thank you. I fortunately did not search for long. Worked like a charm.
Great stuff ! thanks so much for the info; was really struggling with that GPT drive; now it’s all sorted
cheers
Gold. Liquid gold. These instructions are tremendously clear. I wish you had written the rest of the internet.
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.
[...] to Google for half an hour to figure out how to solve my issue. So here it is. Credit goes to Paul Gu for his easy to follow [...]
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!
I’ve had over 25 years in IT, most of the diddling with DOS, Windows and Mac OS. I had not hear of this utility. Fabulous. Really helpful.
the procedure worked perfectly! two 750 GB drives converted from Mac to XP. Yet another RAID array is formed. Thanks a bunch. Cheers!
Thanks a ton!
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.
Paul – Thank you!!!!
You are welcome, guys.
Simple instructions, that fixed the problem
Thank you!
That post has caused a disturbance in the force.
Excellent – thanks a million! It solved the problem in about 2 minutes.
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!
Ammaging,
Grate Knoledge for Windows.
My Problem resolved, Thanks for solution
Thank you soooo much!!
Too easy to be true…
Thanks a zillion!
Thanks! Just what I’ve been looking for!
David from Hungary
Hi, I have the same trouble after plugging my Toshiba MK1652GSX USB device to a Mac but can not figure out how to backup my data first since it is not displaying at all in any computer…any suggestions?
Backup the data to your Mac where you plugged in, then follow the steps above to re-format the disk.
Thanks for your reply, Paul. The thing is it was NOT recognized by that Mac and since then, no PC is recognizing it either…
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.
The fact that there are already 12 people who have found this useful this month (a post created january 2008) just goes to show how important this feat is….many thanks
Kundai
Since everyone thanked you, I’ll thanks you too:
Thanks! =)
thank you very much
now I can use my external HDD with winxp too.
BRAVO!!!:) THUMBS UP!!!:) GREAT JOB:) GODSPEED:)
Big thanks for posting this.
I had to use your tip on 4 drives i got off ebay. Thanks a ton! nice of you to assist.
Nice work Paul, I’m sure plenty more will find this useful.
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.
Paul = Rock Star !!!
Just solved two days of headaches in 2 minutes.
You rule.
thanks a lot
Thanks Paul!!!
It solved the problem in about 2 minutes ….
Hello there,
I have a problem with my WD external drive, and for some reason, it has this previously unheard of partiton. It prevents me from accessing it in My Computer. I Want/Really need the data on there. Any way this could happen?
really helpful..!!
thanks!!!
Great job. Thanks for taking the time to give the info.
Great article. To the point. Helpful.
you are the man!!!!
Awesome, thank you very much!
Great tip! I would’ve been lost without it. Thank you!
Hay Paul, Thanks for that, I tried everything to get this drive working.
Cheers
Terry
Блог очень качественный. Награду бы Вам за него или почетный орден.
Thank you very much! Great tech help.
Perfect. Thanks!
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 for this post. Very helpful!
Thanks so much this saved my flash drive, windows was only reading 200MB of my 8GB
worked perfectly, you da man !!!!!!!!!!!!!
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 you so much.
Sorted all my headache!!!
Thank very much. God bless you and take care !
Nice… super simple and worked!!!
Thanks a million!
ditto.
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
u da man! Thanks
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,
In instruction, it says under XP… make sure you follow it step by step.
Great post saved me a trip back to the people I purchased my gbt protected drive from!
Google + Your Tip = Win.
Thank you.
Dale
Absolutely brilliant….i cant thank you enough paul…..you have saved my day.
You make my day.
Thank you very much. I can use my HDD now.
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!)
I can use this “mac” hdd for my PS3!! Thanks alot Paul
Thanks very much Paul,Cheers!
Excellent. Thanks, Paul.
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
Amazing! I purchased an Iomega 2x500mb=1TB UltraMax Desktop Hard Drive on eBay. When I got it, it powered up but my computer wouldn’t assign it a drive. After stumbling around on techie sites with too advanced (for me)directions I found this blog and IT FIXED MY PROBLEM, It now has a drive letter and is formatted correctly and WORKS. Thank you sooooo much!!!
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.
Hei thanx
savd me a lotta trouble
OMG it works…thank you so much….
Absolutely Fantastic! Works a treat! Thanks! Much Appreciated, Useful to know!
Excellent, very helpful indeed!
Thanx man, very quick and helpful information.
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!
Your a star !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thanks all for great comments….
Thanks dude
ill all the way in South Africa, Johannesburg and u saved me like R.kelly Say…. Thanks Man
Frickn SAWEEEEEEETT
Thx
Thank you, thank you, thank you!
It works well. Really practical stuff. Thanks a lot
Thank you so much, saved me so much time and trouble!
Excellent! thank you very much…saved lot of time.
God Bless you.
Good Job! Good explanation! Well done…
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
MANY THANKS!
Worked perfectly!
Paul, thanks to you I can use my external disks again.
God Bless You
And Let Satan hug Microsoft!
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
<>
plz help me man
If it’s not working in Windows 7, then try it in Windows XP.
Thanks for the invaluable tip.
I use macdrive and it locks up the disc after your done with the drive by preventing anything from changing it. I was unable to reinitialize the disk with macdrive then create a MBR through vista disk managment because windows didn’t have the permission to change the format of the disk.
Saved my a55 a lot of support emails to macdrive, who are quite helpless with windows administration.
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.
Dude…… YOUR THE MAN!!!!! I’VE NEVER heard of this tool. THANK YOU so much! YOU Rock!
you help me aloooooottttt
thanks a million.
You don’t know how much that has helped, thanks again and again
So dam simple
Thanks!! The above information worked for me. I was really close to taking my hard drive back to the store.
Hmm i did not get this to work… are there any special command for clean? like >clean disk:0< ?
When i type \"list disk\" i get DISK, PARTITION and VOLUME. If i type \"list disk\" again i get the disks up, i then \"select:0\" i get a long list of options, but the \"clean\" part i cant get to work..HELP!!
A thousand thanks for a most helpful post. Wishing you the happiest of holidays.
Thank you!!!
This is a Xmas Gift!
My Lacie 500 GB is now back to work!
Thank you very much!
Thanks Paul. I was scratching my head on this one, but your solution solved my problem.
Cheers.
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.
Thank you for the great info
Cheers to you
Found your site via a google search. Solved the problem with my Mac formatted disk.
Really helpful, thanks a lot!
[...] You can also reset a USB drive from the command line. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)[How-To] Remove USB Devices [...]
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
Thank you! I just purchased 2 new hard drives and they were protected and i had no idea how to fix that. I hope you have a wonderful Holiday Season, you deserve it.
Many thanks !
You are the best!
Wow, that worked great, thanks for that!!
lol 338th happy diskparter, shame you cant charge for this advice
think I vaguely recall using this in dos, years ago but thanks for great post!
Thanks! So my years, and still a great help! I had to ‘google’ to get here, but it was worth a million!
The nice thing about good solutions is that they work over and over. Yours was a GOOD solution. Thanks
Thanks a lot for the info. Unbelievable that this isn’t possible with the standard disk management panel.
Cool stuff, you saved me,The Head of Finance bought a 500GB in the US and i had no idea that there was even a GPT protective patition, You a Legend
Thanks a lot, that took care of it. Very easy when compared to some other sites requiring you to download utilities.
WORKS PERFECT!
you rock!!! just saved my life
just did what you said then created a logical drive
then poof! problem solved!
thanks!
Thanks for the refresher! I diskpart quite awhile ago, but haven’t needed it in awhile. You helped me “remember” the command.
Great post, 7 years in IT and the first time i encountered a gpt. concise, to the point and i learned something new!
Thank you!!!! Very helpful!
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
Thank you very much… Sometimes the “simplest” things are the most time consuming
[...] 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/ [...]
[...] 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/ Glad to hear. I had never heard of a GPT disk. I'll remember that one __________________ [...]
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
What a wonder!
Thanks a million.
I spent ages and lots of effort to solve this problem. And now i’ve solved it. Thank again.
Great!!!! thanks a lot!
Thanks
Another happy man! New Free Agent drive was driving me nuts … and now – like all the others above… I’m in business!
you were a great help! mike
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!!!!!!
man thanks a lot!!!
thanks you alot. I hope to have more useful ideas from your blog.
thanks man. it really help.
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
thank you for helping me to delete GPT PARTITION on my hard drive , GOOD JOB.
MANNY!!!!THANK
HI PAUL.
How can i get chinese words on YOUTUBE
thank you.
Thanks with DISKPART!!!!!!!! I had no idea.
Had used diskpart in the past, but was unfamiliar with the ‘clean’ command. Thanks for posting this advice–it saved what little hair I have remaining!
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.
You need to get the HD back to the system where you you put your data, such as Vista, WIndows 7, or Linux… backup all your data to the local disk. Then you can use the instruction above to re-format the disk if you need to.
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!
I’m even confused now, where did you put the data in the first place? Are you sure you have data on the disk? what type of data? what system you have used before to put these data?
thanks a lot its work i am really very thank full to u guys.
FINALLY!!!! The information I needed. Thank you for this post. My “freed” external drive is happily formatting away.
Thanks bro.. nice tut
Holy oh sweet lord oh wow…
Like all the rest here I just want to say thank you, it’s still amazing to me how hard some things can be.
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!
I did this. Seemed to work but now the drive in question shows as “Unallocated” and when I right click I do not get a format option or a delete partition option. Any ideas?
@ 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.
Very nice – thanks.
Thank you so much! So simple and clear. 4 steps and you are done. We need more people like you online!!
Hi Paul,
Thanks yaar…
IT’S WORKS YAAR. AGAIN THANKS FOR SOLUTION.
Thanks Paul,
Saved me a trip back across town to plug a drive back into the Mac and erase it!
thank you!!! your advice was perfect … could not find this info anywhere else.