Formatting secondary HDD

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nickth2009

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Jul 11, 2012
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I've got a 3TB Seagate HDD that Windows only recognizes as 2TB. I've read that I need to format it and convert it to a GPT Disk in Disk Management. I just want to make sure that I won't screw anything up. I have my Windows OS installed on my C: drive which is a 250GB Samsung SSD and use my D: drive (the 3TB) for all my games and videos and some applications. What I was going to do is copy everything on my D: drive to my 500GB external hard drive, format my D: drive and convert it and then copy everything back on. The only thing I'm worried about is I'm no expert and there is a partition on the D: drive that is 100MB saying "System Reserved" and then 2047.9GB "Storage Disk" and 746.52GB Unallocated

Any input would be greatly appreciated.
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there, @nickth2009!

Good job with the backup! That's how it should be done usually. Could you please take a screenshot from Disk Management and share it here? When you were upgrading your primary drive (the SSD) and installing Windows on it, did you unplug the secondary HDD from the SATA ports?
If you have the same partition on your SSD as well, there shouldn't be any issues re-formatting the secondary HDD. However, if that is the only System Reserved partition you have, I suspect that you are the victim of an OS confusion when you were installing Windows onto the SSD.

You shouldn't have any trouble using the Windows Repair Disk to fix the booting issues you could encounter even if you re-format the 3 TB hard drive. You simply need to re-initialize it and then partition & format it.

Hope this helps. Keep me posted if you have more questions! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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nickth2009

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Jul 11, 2012
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Here is a photo of Disk Management
IP94apQ.png


I think you may be correct as I upgraded to Windows 10 about a week ago but did not unplug my storage hard drive and my SSD does not have the System Reserved partition, however it does have a 449MB "Recovery Partition"

I've got an application called MiniTool Partition Wizard that I found on another forum post here saying I could convert to a GPT Disk in the program without formatting my HDD. However, when I try to do this I get an error message saying "This disk contains system partition and converting this disk to GPT style will cause your system to be unbootable." With no option to continue. Should I format the drive in Disk Management and convert it to GPT there? I don't have a Windows Repair Disk just the USB loaded with the Windows 10 image file.
 
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SuperSoph_WD

SuperSoph_WD

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Jul 30, 2014
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Hey there again, @nickth2009!

I'd recommend you simply tro to boot the system with the secondary drive unplugged. This way, If you are able to boot without any issues, reformatting the HDD properly through Disk Management shouldn't affect the OS boot up afterwards.
However, if removing the HDD from the system did cause boot issues, you might want to consider doing a clean install.

You have done the system upgrade recently, so I'd recommend you to start from scratch and reinstall the OS on the SSD, but this time make sure you leave the HDD unplugged from the SATA ports until the OS installation is completed. This is the surest way to avoid more system confusion and booting issues. However, don't forget to backup everything somewhere off-site beforehand. Once the reinstall is up and running on the SSD, you should be able to plug back the secondary drive and reformat it without any issues because this time the System partition will be right where it should be, on the primary drive. :)

I'm not a fan of third-party applications, but from what I saw, the fact that you have 'System Partition' on the drive you won't be able to convert it to GPT without reformatting it and removing that partition.

If you need more help with the proper way to do this, I'd suggest you follow these step-by-steps on Windows Install & Optimization for SSDs & HDDs

Let me know how it goes! :)
SuperSoph_WD
 
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nickth2009

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Jul 11, 2012
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Ok so I just found this post on Seven forums http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/189387-system-reserved-partition-wrong-drive-how-do-i-move.html and followed the instructions the rebooted with the HDD unplugged and Windows booted up no problem so looks like I will go ahead and format then convert. Thank you for your help!
 
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