New GPT drive, works but now I can't access!

[night_day]

Hi everyone,

I just picked up a new 2TB drive, installed. I am running Windows 7 32bit. Windows detected the drive, asked me to format. I selected GPT. This went fine. I assigned it a drive letter and this went fine as well. I proceeded to spend the next while moving a ton of stuff onto this drive. Everything was fine, but when I rebooted today, the drive now does not have a drive letter and I cannot access it. Please help! Thanks!

 

[number13]

Why did you do that! Windows x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 SP1 operating systems support the use of GPT drives only as data volumes. Because the x64 and x86 architectures do not provide support for an EFI boot partition, you cannot use a GPT drive to boot an x64-based computer or an x86-based computer with a legacy BIOS. Therefore, computers running these operating systems must be equipped with more than one physical driver to allow the use of the GPT disk format.

 

[night_day]

I am not trying to boot from that drive. I am using it solely for storage. My main OS is working fine.

 

[number13]

sorry, misunderstood the problem, try this, go Start>Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management(Local)>the next box gives you a list of HDD's, CD-ROM's, and USB devices, is it there?

 

[night_day]

Yes, it appears as disk1. Attached is a screen

 

[number13]

so widows does see it, (even though it thinks it's empty) when you open Windows Explorer, in the left hand colum, find a clear place and right click on it, make sure Show All Folders is checked

 

[night_day]

Thanks for your help, show all folders is checked off.

 

[Ijack]

There's clearly something very wrong with your partition table. It's showing a 2TB disk as having 3911.02GB of storage. I believe that you should see only one GPT Protective Partition, not two.

I would be inclined to start over, although that may not be easy with a GPT disk. (I'd also be inclined to stick with a conventional MBR partitioning scheme.) Try Googling "GPT protective partition" - there are quite a few links there that might help.

 

[night_day]

Ugh, I already moved 500 GB of stuff on there, family vids and pics No other thoughts?

 

[Ijack]

Well, you could have a look at this article and see if it helps at all. A non-Windows disk utility, as mentioned there, may be able to tell you what's wrong.

 

[number13]

Well at least I know what not to do if some one asks about GPT