GPT Protective Partition on Maxtor One Touch!

98EXL

Gawd
Joined
Mar 16, 2006
Messages
580
To make a long story short, I backed up all of 'My Documents' from my rig to my Maxtor One Touch external HDD. I rebuilt my system from XP 64-bit, back to 32-bit XP. When I got everything installed again, I went to go grab all of my documents, and the One Touch doesn't show up.

Looking at Disk Management, the One Touch says that it is a 'GPT Protective Partition' WTF does that mean, and why can't I get my data off!

I would like some suggestions other than installing Maxtors software, I did that already to no avail.
 
The OneTouch is using the GUID Partition Table to store partition info. It actually stores the partition info in a separate structure on the disk after the normal PC MBR, which is retained to prevent old or braindead disk utilities from damaging the GPT. That's what you're seeing in Windows. Microsoft won't support GPT on 32 bit Windows.

I suggest booting back into 64-bit and format a disk with the usual MBR instead of GPT, then copy your data over to it. Or boot a Linux LiveCD with GPT support enabled in the kernel, and do the copying from there.
 
I'd rather not do another 64-bit install.....but I do like the idea of the Linux Live CD....I'll try that.
 
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