8TB External USB drive has GPT partitions
Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2022 7:16 am
Hi,
I have an 8TB Seagate external drive which I got by removing the drive from a Seagate external drive (the USB connector on the enclosure was flaky).
So I am using that in a dock for now, and I was looking at it in BIU (and you can the partition info in what I provided in this thread: viewtopic.php?t=4204
Anyway, I don't know how/why it happened, but that drive is using GPT and has a small "Microsoft reserved" partition and most of the 8TB is in a second NTFS partition.
I know this is a long shot question, but is there any (safe) way to remove the reserved partition, and make the drive into MBR instead of GPT, and then have the larger partition take the entire drive space?
Like I said, I am also not sure why (and am puzzled about why) it is a GPT drive in the first place, and also why it has that reserved partition. I may have formatted the drive from Windows 10. Would that automatically set the drive up as GPT?
For NTFS and exFat partitions, is there a limitation in size? Is it possible for an 8TB drive to not use GPT and just be MBR and still have large (e.g., taking the entire) drive? Or do such large drives always have to use GPT?
Thanks,
Jim
I have an 8TB Seagate external drive which I got by removing the drive from a Seagate external drive (the USB connector on the enclosure was flaky).
So I am using that in a dock for now, and I was looking at it in BIU (and you can the partition info in what I provided in this thread: viewtopic.php?t=4204
Anyway, I don't know how/why it happened, but that drive is using GPT and has a small "Microsoft reserved" partition and most of the 8TB is in a second NTFS partition.
I know this is a long shot question, but is there any (safe) way to remove the reserved partition, and make the drive into MBR instead of GPT, and then have the larger partition take the entire drive space?
Like I said, I am also not sure why (and am puzzled about why) it is a GPT drive in the first place, and also why it has that reserved partition. I may have formatted the drive from Windows 10. Would that automatically set the drive up as GPT?
For NTFS and exFat partitions, is there a limitation in size? Is it possible for an 8TB drive to not use GPT and just be MBR and still have large (e.g., taking the entire) drive? Or do such large drives always have to use GPT?
Thanks,
Jim