GPT Hard drive on XP is Impossible?

[Guy Gardener]

I've been riding this dragon for nearly four days, and since it takes 26 hours to re/format 3 terrabytes with the technology I have on hand, I could be at this for quite some time to come.

Seagate just (stop laughing) switched over to GPT from MBR as a partitioning language for it's external hard rives. XP has no GPT support.

Fortunately I have access to a PC running Vista that can recognize this hard drive and allow me to fiddle with the smug bugger until it get's it's #### sorted.

I've converted the drive from GPT to MBR with command prompt (Run) and am now reformatting the hard drive for the second and a half time in the last 3 days.

Here's why this solution is shitty.

My new hard drive is going to be bisected 3:1, which is only almost intollerable, but is this my stupidly foreseeable future until I update my OS (which my ancient 4th hand charitably donated hardware could not possibly handle.)? All my other 3tb hard drives are MRB, and XP loves them, so I don't understand the bloody problem that seems to have just been invented to vex me.

Any advice?

(Don't be fooled, Paragon is for internal hard drives only.)

 

[scotthm]

Any advice?

Spend $185 on a refurbished Windows 7 computer.

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[Guy Gardener]

Any "helpful" advice that isn't incredibly mean?

I just blew my wad.

My next wad is for Christmas.

Well half a wad for the power bill, and then a wad for Christmas.

Not sure about the wad after that but it's going to be something depressing.



All finished doing what the internet told me to do after another 30 hours of reformatting, and it didn't work.

Windows Vista recognizes the the 3tb now bisected into a 2tb drive and a 1tb drive using MBR partitioning, but windows XP is still swearing that nothing is there.

So maybe GPT wasn't the problem, or there is more than one problem?

 

[Marc]

Any "helpful" advice that isn't incredibly mean?

I just blew my wad.

My next wad is for Christmas.

Well half a wad for the power bill, and then a wad for Christmas.

Not sure about the wad after that but it's going to be something depressing.



All finished doing what the internet told me to do after another 30 hours of reformatting, and it didn't work.

Windows Vista recognizes the the 3tb now bisected into a 2tb drive and a 1tb drive using MBR partitioning, but windows XP is still swearing that nothing is there.

So maybe GPT wasn't the problem, or there is more than one problem?

A 5 second web search would have answered your question very very quickly.

https://www.microsoft.com/resources...docs/en-us/guid_partition_table.mspx?mfr=true

GPT disks are supported only by Windows XP 64-Bit Edition. You cannot move GPT disks to computers running the 32-bit versions of Windows XP. From Disk Management on computers running a 32-bit version of Windows XP, GPT disks appear as basic MBR disks with a single partition covering the whole disk, but the data on the partition cannot be accessed.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Thank you, but that just explains that there is a problem without suggesting a solution, other than upgrading my OS to 64 bit (which I actually tried, but the windows 7 disk I've been carrying around for the last 4 years, resisted the dinosaur I'm using.) which is a month away solution and not a right now solution. I've actually bought my next computer last year. A lap top 5 years younger and (at least) twice as powerful as this computer, which is also still unfortunately running 32 bit Windows XP.

"Sigh"

Since this external hard drive is brand new, and the only given solution, convert gpt to mbr and cut your drive in half is a couple years old, I'm reasonably sure that there are other less obvious incompatibilities that can only be solved by upgrading my OS which is something I am not currently in a mood to do, because that would mean buying another shitty old lemon of a computer.

I'm giving up, because there's no way out.

Currently I'm waiting for the shop to open (It's 8 am) so that I can return the hard drive (while apologizing that I can't be bothered spending another 30 hours reformatting the disk back to like how it was when I bought it) for cash or a usable product, that won't freak out because I'm still treating the internet like it's 2010.

Sorry.

 

[scotthm]

.

 

[Guy Gardener]

Oh Scott, I'm sorry if my abrasive defensiveness offended you, but your advice is actually the winner despite the steamy lap dance I gave our national poverty line this weekend.

Having just returned from the store, where they gave my wad back. I have a full wad again, locked and cocked to unload on any bright young thing that takes my fancy, although I think I'll wad up for 2 weeks to build into a double wad. A double wad might mean I'm looking at a 2nd hand windows 8 lap top and not a 3rd hand windows vista desktop, which in either case will still give me a smarter modern (2011!) OS who can handle new externals and comes with hopefully a gig of it's own storage to tide me over through this damned storage crisis I am leaning into.

"Sigh"