Deleting Partitions/Formating HDD

[Paul]

Thanks for all that. I simply solved the issue by using Diskpart
which is a replacement for Fdisk. I guess this old BIOS supports
everything needed. The problem with doing all the reading I did was
that so much of it to do with old outdated information and more time
was spent sifting over that useless material. It's nice to know all
that 2^41 bytes stuff but who can remember it all

I was hoping somewhere along the way, it would be explained:

1) Disks using the old MBR scheme, are limited to 2.2TB in capacity (2048GB).
That is, 2**32 sectors. The OS may point this out, by preventing expansion
past that point. On RAID arrays, sometimes the user discovers the limit by
accident, when they fill a large RAID just past the 2.2TB mark, and the
partition gets corrupted. (That's a lousy way to learn about managing big
storage devices by the way.) So while you'd hope the OS stops you from
shooting yourself in the foot, I've run into at least one poster who
learned of the issue, by losing ~2.2TB of data when the RAID corrupted
on "sector address rollover".

Some RAID controllers support "fake sectors" at the controller card level.
There was at least one Areca, that makes "fake 4K" sectors from a drive set
having 512 byte sectors. This raises the "safe" limit on the Areca to
2**32 * 4096/512 or in the order of 16TB. But you're unlikely to run into
that in most situations. You'd be able to boot from a 16TB partition using
MBR partition table, if you had that particular setup. Most of the time though,
any RAID you use, probably doesn't have that feature. And to find that, I had
to skim read the entire Areca manual. The option is not set by default.

1a) Use a virtual device driver, that "makes" the 3TB drive, look like more
than one disk drive. This causes problems when switching between OSes,
but if you're staying in Windows, might allow a continuation of MBR based
operation. Both of the current disk drive manufacturing companies, should
have software on their site for this. One solution offered is better than
the other.

2) GUID Partition Table (GPT) is the other option. Typically used for data-only
disks on desktops, and allowing the whole 3TB to be used. GPT also installs
a "protective MBR", such that if the disk is connected to an older computer,
the user "notices" something is wrong before it is too late. The GPT disk
still has an MBR, but with bogus info in it, to serve as a warning not
to use it.

If you're new to big disks, you'd search the manufacturer's web site, for the
*exact* disk drive model you bought. There, you'll find any half-baked virtual
device driver being offered. Or if you're lucky, a discussion about MBR versus
GPT and which OSes support what. Next, you'd head over to Wikipedia, and do some
reading on GPT (which should have links to any MBR articles you need).

You can see in the table here, you can boot GPT from an EFI BIOS (modern motherboard
only) with the Windows 7 OS. Otherwise, you'd probably want an MBR setup of
some sort, if you desire to boot some other kind of Windows setup. And if the disk
is data-only (never going to boot from it), then GPT is probably the best option.
That's probably less objectionable than a virtual device driver (for Windows only).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

Any time you run into a capacity limit, or someone tells you about a capacity
limit, and you have any questions, it pays to "test" the capacity before actually
using it. For example, when I hit the 137GB limit years ago, for a couple disk
installs, I copied files into the large drive, until I got past the limit and
there was no corruption. That told me then, that I had proper support for
that size of partition and disk. It's better to test first, than to discover
like the other poster did, who lost 2.2TB of data (months after setting the
thing up).

Paul

 

[Allen Drake]

I was hoping somewhere along the way, it would be explained:

1) Disks using the old MBR scheme, are limited to 2.2TB in capacity (2048GB).
That is, 2**32 sectors. The OS may point this out, by preventing expansion
past that point. On RAID arrays, sometimes the user discovers the limit by
accident, when they fill a large RAID just past the 2.2TB mark, and the
partition gets corrupted. (That's a lousy way to learn about managing big
storage devices by the way.) So while you'd hope the OS stops you from
shooting yourself in the foot, I've run into at least one poster who
learned of the issue, by losing ~2.2TB of data when the RAID corrupted
on "sector address rollover".

Some RAID controllers support "fake sectors" at the controller card level.
There was at least one Areca, that makes "fake 4K" sectors from a drive set
having 512 byte sectors. This raises the "safe" limit on the Areca to
2**32 * 4096/512 or in the order of 16TB. But you're unlikely to run into
that in most situations. You'd be able to boot from a 16TB partition using
MBR partition table, if you had that particular setup. Most of the time though,
any RAID you use, probably doesn't have that feature. And to find that, I had
to skim read the entire Areca manual. The option is not set by default.

1a) Use a virtual device driver, that "makes" the 3TB drive, look like more
than one disk drive. This causes problems when switching between OSes,
but if you're staying in Windows, might allow a continuation of MBR based
operation. Both of the current disk drive manufacturing companies, should
have software on their site for this. One solution offered is better than
the other.

2) GUID Partition Table (GPT) is the other option. Typically used for data-only
disks on desktops, and allowing the whole 3TB to be used. GPT also installs
a "protective MBR", such that if the disk is connected to an older computer,
the user "notices" something is wrong before it is too late. The GPT disk
still has an MBR, but with bogus info in it, to serve as a warning not
to use it.

This is the option I am using. No RAID and I do remember somewhere
along the line configuring this drive to go with the GPT selection. It
may have actually been the Seagate application as I had tried so may
things my head is spinning along with that platter.

If you're new to big disks, you'd search the manufacturer's web site, for the
*exact* disk drive model you bought. There, you'll find any half-baked virtual
device driver being offered. Or if you're lucky, a discussion about MBR versus
GPT and which OSes support what. Next, you'd head over to Wikipedia, and do some
reading on GPT (which should have links to any MBR articles you need).

This is the drive I have
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/barracuda-xt/

You can see in the table here, you can boot GPT from an EFI BIOS (modern motherboard
only) with the Windows 7 OS. Otherwise, you'd probably want an MBR setup of
some sort, if you desire to boot some other kind of Windows setup. And if the disk
is data-only (never going to boot from it), then GPT is probably the best option.
That's probably less objectionable than a virtual device driver (for Windows only).

I am using the Gigabyte P35-S3G motherboard

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

Any time you run into a capacity limit, or someone tells you about a capacity
limit, and you have any questions, it pays to "test" the capacity before actually
using it. For example, when I hit the 137GB limit years ago, for a couple disk
installs, I copied files into the large drive, until I got past the limit and
there was no corruption. That told me then, that I had proper support for
that size of partition and disk. It's better to test first, than to discover
like the other poster did, who lost 2.2TB of data (months after setting the
thing up).

Paul

I will continue to read as much as I can find about the limits you
pointed out and thank you. I was also thinking of doing the same test.
I will copy files to this drive to its limits just to be sure.

Thanks again Paul.

Regards.

Al Drake

 

[Allen Drake]

I was hoping somewhere along the way, it would be explained:

1) Disks using the old MBR scheme, are limited to 2.2TB in capacity (2048GB).
That is, 2**32 sectors. The OS may point this out, by preventing expansion
past that point. On RAID arrays, sometimes the user discovers the limit by
accident, when they fill a large RAID just past the 2.2TB mark, and the
partition gets corrupted. (That's a lousy way to learn about managing big
storage devices by the way.) So while you'd hope the OS stops you from
shooting yourself in the foot, I've run into at least one poster who
learned of the issue, by losing ~2.2TB of data when the RAID corrupted
on "sector address rollover".

Some RAID controllers support "fake sectors" at the controller card level.
There was at least one Areca, that makes "fake 4K" sectors from a drive set
having 512 byte sectors. This raises the "safe" limit on the Areca to
2**32 * 4096/512 or in the order of 16TB. But you're unlikely to run into
that in most situations. You'd be able to boot from a 16TB partition using
MBR partition table, if you had that particular setup. Most of the time though,
any RAID you use, probably doesn't have that feature. And to find that, I had
to skim read the entire Areca manual. The option is not set by default.

1a) Use a virtual device driver, that "makes" the 3TB drive, look like more
than one disk drive. This causes problems when switching between OSes,
but if you're staying in Windows, might allow a continuation of MBR based
operation. Both of the current disk drive manufacturing companies, should
have software on their site for this. One solution offered is better than
the other.

2) GUID Partition Table (GPT) is the other option. Typically used for data-only
disks on desktops, and allowing the whole 3TB to be used. GPT also installs
a "protective MBR", such that if the disk is connected to an older computer,
the user "notices" something is wrong before it is too late. The GPT disk
still has an MBR, but with bogus info in it, to serve as a warning not
to use it.

If you're new to big disks, you'd search the manufacturer's web site, for the
*exact* disk drive model you bought. There, you'll find any half-baked virtual
device driver being offered. Or if you're lucky, a discussion about MBR versus
GPT and which OSes support what. Next, you'd head over to Wikipedia, and do some
reading on GPT (which should have links to any MBR articles you need).

You can see in the table here, you can boot GPT from an EFI BIOS (modern motherboard
only) with the Windows 7 OS. Otherwise, you'd probably want an MBR setup of
some sort, if you desire to boot some other kind of Windows setup. And if the disk
is data-only (never going to boot from it), then GPT is probably the best option.
That's probably less objectionable than a virtual device driver (for Windows only).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table

Any time you run into a capacity limit, or someone tells you about a capacity
limit, and you have any questions, it pays to "test" the capacity before actually
using it. For example, when I hit the 137GB limit years ago, for a couple disk
installs, I copied files into the large drive, until I got past the limit and
there was no corruption. That told me then, that I had proper support for
that size of partition and disk. It's better to test first, than to discover
like the other poster did, who lost 2.2TB of data (months after setting the
thing up).

Paul

One other thing I noticed is System Information shows the Partition
Starting offset as 135,266,304 bytes while the other 1 TB Seagate
drive present shows 32,256 bytes if that means anything. Also if I
attempt to format the 3TB drive it shows the allocation bytes as 4096

 

[Paul]

This is the option I am using. No RAID and I do remember somewhere
along the line configuring this drive to go with the GPT selection. It
may have actually been the Seagate application as I had tried so may
things my head is spinning along with that platter.



This is the drive I have
http://www.seagate.com/internal-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/barracuda-xt/


I am using the Gigabyte P35-S3G motherboard


I will continue to read as much as I can find about the limits you
pointed out and thank you. I was also thinking of doing the same test.
I will copy files to this drive to its limits just to be sure.

Thanks again Paul.

Regards.

Al Drake

Your motherboard is probably non-EFI (P35 era), which means if you wanted to
boot from the drive, GPT wouldn't work.

Seagate expects us to type in model#, serial#, and a captcha, to access the
download file. Which I don't have on hand here, to play along. I have Seagate
drives, and if I used their info, I might see a different result in a download
search, than you might get. Their authentication scheme, harms my ability to
"play along" and do the same thing you'd be doing.

In this document, they mention DiskWizard. And this appears to be installing
a virtual device driver, making multiple hard drives appear in Device Manager
and in Disk Management, as a means to allowing MBR type partitions. (And that's
because the volumes are limited to 2.2TB, so they won't bust MBR.) So this
doesn't appear to necessarily be using GPT. It could be a virtual device driver,
turning the disk into "multiple disks". So in Disk Management, you'd see
Disk0 turn into Disk0, Disk1, Disk2 perhaps. And your other disks, would
start after that. And each of those disks could have four primary partitions.

http://www.seagate.com/files/staticfiles/docs/pdf/whitepaper/mb615-break-2-1-barrier-us.pdf

If you did it that way, then booted into Linux, chances are only Disk 0 would
show up, and the space "above" that area, wouldn't be accessible. That's what
I have against using a virtual device driver, that makes "fake" disks to
allow presentation of all the capacity. If you did a GPT partition, then
I suspect both Windows and Linux would see the same thing. But GPT would
then restrict usage to data-only, rather than allowing some booting.

The wasted space on the drive, could be where they're keeping some of the software.
Otherwise, a large offset would be unnecessary. Traditional offset is 63 sectors.
Windows 7 offset is in multiples of a megabyte (to operate optimally with SSD drives).
I think the modern Linux tools, use the megabyte power_of_two thing as well.
Having a larger offset than that, it could mean Seagate stores stuff they need in
there. If it was my disk, I'd have my "microscope" out, for a look at that
space And see what's in there.

For example, using another OS, and the "disktype" utility, I'd ask "disktype"
for info on "what's in that chunk of wasted space". Too bad "disktype" isn't
ported to Windows. Disktype can tell you a lot about partitions or the whole disk.
You can even point Disktype at a CD or DVD, and it'll tell you whether the
disc is a hybrid and has multiple file systems on it. I hope some day,
they make a Windows version, because I hate booting to Linux to use
that for 30 seconds.

http://disktype.sourceforge.net/

Paul

 

[DJT]

I tried deleting the partition and creating a new one but that only
gets me back to the original problem. I have found links to
information on using drives over 2TB with Win7 so I have some reading
to do. I have an external 3TB USB 3 drive that works fine so I may
just use it that way for now but my curiosity will get the best of me
and I will eventually find out what needs to be known.
Thanks.

Al

Are you using an older operating system, as some of the older systems
cannot see the full amiunt of a 3tb disk drive. I know that an up to
date Win 7 can see it properly but I tking XP may need a change to see
it


DJT

 

[VanguardLH]

Thanks for all that. I simply solved the issue by using Diskpart
which is a replacement for Fdisk. I guess this old BIOS supports
everything needed. The problem with doing all the reading I did was
that so much of it to do with old outdated information and more time
was spent sifting over that useless material. It's nice to know all
that 2^41 bytes stuff but who can remember it all

I'm not used to the extra commands available in Windows 7's version of
diskpart; see:

http://commandwindows.com/diskpart.htm
(where the ones asterisk are new after Windows XP)
and
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx

As such, I don't know that diskpart's "format" command will
automatically change an MBR schemed hard disk to a GPT schemed hard disk
just because the partition size exceeds the 2.1TB limit for the old MBR
scheme. Since there is a "convert gpt" command & parameter, I would
think conversion would not be automatic and you must actually specify to
use the GPT scheme. In your response to Glowing, you did not mention
ever using any of its GPT functions. Of course, you didn't say you were
still using the old MBR scheme, either, so maybe the HDD was already
pre-configured with the GPT scheme.

You got lucky if diskpart's "format" command does an automatic
MBR-to-GPT conversion for you. I doubt that it does and instead suspect
you previously ran Seagate's DiscWizard which installed their virtual
disk driver to map via software to a larger address space than the MBR
partition table will allow, or MBR wasn't pre-configured on the HDD but
instead GPT was already setup for you.

 

[Allen Drake]

Are you using an older operating system, as some of the older systems
cannot see the full amiunt of a 3tb disk drive. I know that an up to
date Win 7 can see it properly but I tking XP may need a change to see
it


DJT

I am using win 7 SP1 with all the updates. This drive will be a data
drive only as I have SSDs at boot drive on all my systems.

 

[Allen Drake]

Your motherboard is probably non-EFI (P35 era), which means if you wanted to
boot from the drive, GPT wouldn't work.

I will be using this drive for data only. I have installed Crucial
256 GB SSDs to boot all my systems now.

Seagate expects us to type in model#, serial#, and a captcha, to access the
download file. Which I don't have on hand here, to play along. I have Seagate
drives, and if I used their info, I might see a different result in a download
search, than you might get. Their authentication scheme, harms my ability to
"play along" and do the same thing you'd be doing.

In this document, they mention DiskWizard. And this appears to be installing
a virtual device driver, making multiple hard drives appear in Device Manager
and in Disk Management, as a means to allowing MBR type partitions. (And that's
because the volumes are limited to 2.2TB, so they won't bust MBR.) So this
doesn't appear to necessarily be using GPT. It could be a virtual device driver,
turning the disk into "multiple disks". So in Disk Management, you'd see
Disk0 turn into Disk0, Disk1, Disk2 perhaps. And your other disks, would
start after that. And each of those disks could have four primary partitions.

In Disk Management I see this 3TB drive as one single drive (F with
Disk 0 as C: being the SSD and Disk 1 being WinXP Pro for the dual
boot.

http://www.seagate.com/files/staticfiles/docs/pdf/whitepaper/mb615-break-2-1-barrier-us.pdf

If you did it that way, then booted into Linux, chances are only Disk 0 would
show up, and the space "above" that area, wouldn't be accessible. That's what
I have against using a virtual device driver, that makes "fake" disks to
allow presentation of all the capacity. If you did a GPT partition, then
I suspect both Windows and Linux would see the same thing. But GPT would
then restrict usage to data-only, rather than allowing some booting.

The wasted space on the drive, could be where they're keeping some of the software.
Otherwise, a large offset would be unnecessary. Traditional offset is 63 sectors.
Windows 7 offset is in multiples of a megabyte (to operate optimally with SSD drives).
I think the modern Linux tools, use the megabyte power_of_two thing as well.
Having a larger offset than that, it could mean Seagate stores stuff they need in
there. If it was my disk, I'd have my "microscope" out, for a look at that
space And see what's in there.

For example, using another OS, and the "disktype" utility, I'd ask "disktype"
for info on "what's in that chunk of wasted space". Too bad "disktype" isn't
ported to Windows. Disktype can tell you a lot about partitions or the whole disk.
You can even point Disktype at a CD or DVD, and it'll tell you whether the
disc is a hybrid and has multiple file systems on it. I hope some day,
they make a Windows version, because I hate booting to Linux to use
that for 30 seconds.

http://disktype.sourceforge.net/

Paul

If I am not mistaken then I can remove this drive and place it in
another Win7 System and if it shows as a 3TB drive it will not be a
fake drive. From all the dozens of reviews of this drive I saw most
being good and only a few having difficulties. Some arriving as DOA
and some showing far less than the 3TB. Those were obviously
configured like mine was in the beginning.

 

[Allen Drake]

I'm not used to the extra commands available in Windows 7's version of
diskpart; see:

http://commandwindows.com/diskpart.htm
(where the ones asterisk are new after Windows XP)
and
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx

As such, I don't know that diskpart's "format" command will
automatically change an MBR schemed hard disk to a GPT schemed hard disk
just because the partition size exceeds the 2.1TB limit for the old MBR
scheme. Since there is a "convert gpt" command & parameter, I would
think conversion would not be automatic and you must actually specify to
use the GPT scheme. In your response to Glowing, you did not mention
ever using any of its GPT functions. Of course, you didn't say you were
still using the old MBR scheme, either, so maybe the HDD was already
pre-configured with the GPT scheme.

You got lucky if diskpart's "format" command does an automatic
MBR-to-GPT conversion for you. I doubt that it does and instead suspect
you previously ran Seagate's DiscWizard which installed their virtual
disk driver to map via software to a larger address space than the MBR
partition table will allow, or MBR wasn't pre-configured on the HDD but
instead GPT was already setup for you.

I may have well used DiskWizard to convert to GPT if that command is
present in that application as I do remember doing this but I thought
it was within Disk Management. I tried DiskWizard again but it didn't
even see this drive this time. I don't remember exactly how I got to
where I am now or in what order things happened as it took so many
trial and error events switching between Disk Management and
DiskWizard and the most tries using Diskpart until I finally was able
to successfully format using Diskpart after issuing a clean command.

 

[Allen Drake]

Your motherboard is probably non-EFI (P35 era), which means if you wanted to
boot from the drive, GPT wouldn't work.

Seagate expects us to type in model#, serial#, and a captcha, to access the
download file. Which I don't have on hand here, to play along. I have Seagate
drives, and if I used their info, I might see a different result in a download
search, than you might get. Their authentication scheme, harms my ability to
"play along" and do the same thing you'd be doing.

In this document, they mention DiskWizard. And this appears to be installing
a virtual device driver, making multiple hard drives appear in Device Manager
and in Disk Management, as a means to allowing MBR type partitions. (And that's
because the volumes are limited to 2.2TB, so they won't bust MBR.) So this
doesn't appear to necessarily be using GPT. It could be a virtual device driver,
turning the disk into "multiple disks". So in Disk Management, you'd see
Disk0 turn into Disk0, Disk1, Disk2 perhaps. And your other disks, would
start after that. And each of those disks could have four primary partitions.

http://www.seagate.com/files/staticfiles/docs/pdf/whitepaper/mb615-break-2-1-barrier-us.pdf

If you did it that way, then booted into Linux, chances are only Disk 0 would
show up, and the space "above" that area, wouldn't be accessible. That's what
I have against using a virtual device driver, that makes "fake" disks to
allow presentation of all the capacity. If you did a GPT partition, then
I suspect both Windows and Linux would see the same thing. But GPT would
then restrict usage to data-only, rather than allowing some booting.

The wasted space on the drive, could be where they're keeping some of the software.
Otherwise, a large offset would be unnecessary. Traditional offset is 63 sectors.
Windows 7 offset is in multiples of a megabyte (to operate optimally with SSD drives).
I think the modern Linux tools, use the megabyte power_of_two thing as well.
Having a larger offset than that, it could mean Seagate stores stuff they need in
there. If it was my disk, I'd have my "microscope" out, for a look at that
space And see what's in there.

For example, using another OS, and the "disktype" utility, I'd ask "disktype"
for info on "what's in that chunk of wasted space". Too bad "disktype" isn't
ported to Windows. Disktype can tell you a lot about partitions or the whole disk.
You can even point Disktype at a CD or DVD, and it'll tell you whether the
disc is a hybrid and has multiple file systems on it. I hope some day,
they make a Windows version, because I hate booting to Linux to use
that for 30 seconds.

http://disktype.sourceforge.net/

Paul

I just booted (dual boot) to XP Pro and with Disk Management I see
this drive as a 746.52 GB GPT while within Win7 there is no such
indication of it being GPT but does show 2.72 GB. So far my conclusion
is that it is not a false drive. My next test will be to remove and
place this drive into another Win7 machine and see what it shows as.

 

[Allen Drake]

I'm not used to the extra commands available in Windows 7's version of
diskpart; see:

http://commandwindows.com/diskpart.htm
(where the ones asterisk are new after Windows XP)
and
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx

As such, I don't know that diskpart's "format" command will
automatically change an MBR schemed hard disk to a GPT schemed hard disk
just because the partition size exceeds the 2.1TB limit for the old MBR
scheme. Since there is a "convert gpt" command & parameter, I would
think conversion would not be automatic and you must actually specify to
use the GPT scheme. In your response to Glowing, you did not mention
ever using any of its GPT functions. Of course, you didn't say you were
still using the old MBR scheme, either, so maybe the HDD was already
pre-configured with the GPT scheme.

You got lucky if diskpart's "format" command does an automatic
MBR-to-GPT conversion for you. I doubt that it does and instead suspect
you previously ran Seagate's DiscWizard which installed their virtual
disk driver to map via software to a larger address space than the MBR
partition table will allow, or MBR wasn't pre-configured on the HDD but
instead GPT was already setup for you.

I just removed this drive and placed it into a USB3 cradle on another
Win7 system and using Disk Management It shows as unallocated 2794 GB
with an option to initialize either MBR or GPT. Now I remember this is
how I got it to GPT in the first system. After I select GPT it remains
unallocated with options to select New Simple Volume,New Spanned
Volume,New Striped Volume,New Mirrored Volume,or New Raid Volume. I
selected New Simple Volume. Then I used Diskpart to clean and format
which is where I am now when this drive is installed in the first
system. I am not sure if I have to reformat now that I am using this
in the second Win7 System but my guess is no. I am now deciding which
system it will remain in before I go through the Diskpart procedure
again if indeed necessary.

 

[Paul]

I just booted (dual boot) to XP Pro and with Disk Management I see
this drive as a 746.52 GB GPT while within Win7 there is no such
indication of it being GPT but does show 2.72 GB. So far my conclusion
is that it is not a false drive. My next test will be to remove and
place this drive into another Win7 machine and see what it shows as.

Did you install drivers in both OSes ?

That is, if it's using drivers.

You'd need to check Device Manager, for evidence of that. Do Properties
on the entries, and look at the drivers being used.

Paul

 

[Allen Drake]

Did you install drivers in both OSes ?

That is, if it's using drivers.

You'd need to check Device Manager, for evidence of that. Do Properties
on the entries, and look at the drivers being used.

Paul

Right now I am in Win7 on the original system with the 3TB disk
removed and sitting in a USB cradle. Using Device Manager I see 3
drivers. They are named disk.sys,partmgr.sys and snapman.sys. I do not
remember installing any drivers so maybe they were already there or
installed in some other process.

 

[Paul]

Right now I am in Win7 on the original system with the 3TB disk
removed and sitting in a USB cradle. Using Device Manager I see 3
drivers. They are named disk.sys,partmgr.sys and snapman.sys. I do not
remember installing any drivers so maybe they were already there or
installed in some other process.

When I check my disks on this WinXP system, the drivers are disk.sys and partmgr.sys.

There is no snapman.sys for my disk drive.

Do properties on that file, and see if it is a Microsoft file or not.

*******

There is no snapman.sys on my WinXP C: drive.

There is no snapman.sys on my Windows 7 laptop either.

A quick check in a search engine, seems to suggest it's an Acronis file.

" kb.acronis.com/content/1512 (currently not responding)

The Snapshot Manager driver (snapman.sys) is installed as an upper filter
between the file system drivers and the volume drivers, so SnapAPI can
intercept all the read and write requests passing to a partition."

DiskWizard was probably written by Acronis, but it's purpose may not
be a "fake drive" type of driver.

Paul

 

[Allen Drake]

When I check my disks on this WinXP system, the drivers are disk.sys and partmgr.sys.

There is no snapman.sys for my disk drive.

Do properties on that file, and see if it is a Microsoft file or not.

*******

There is no snapman.sys on my WinXP C: drive.

There is no snapman.sys on my Windows 7 laptop either.

A quick check in a search engine, seems to suggest it's an Acronis file.

" kb.acronis.com/content/1512 (currently not responding)

The Snapshot Manager driver (snapman.sys) is installed as an upper filter
between the file system drivers and the volume drivers, so SnapAPI can
intercept all the read and write requests passing to a partition."

DiskWizard was probably written by Acronis, but it's purpose may not
be a "fake drive" type of driver.

Paul

I think it is a Acronis file either from TI or Apricorn both I have
used on this and most of my systems. I don't think the access to this
drive is in anyway a fake drive as there seems to be no indication
that it is. All the reviews I have read about this drive don't mention
anything but a true HDD. I guess the only way to find out would be to
copy files and see where the limit is.

 

[VanguardLH]

I just removed this drive and placed it into a USB3 cradle on another
Win7 system and using Disk Management It shows as unallocated 2794 GB
with an option to initialize either MBR or GPT. Now I remember this
is how I got it to GPT in the first system. After I select GPT it
remains unallocated with options to select New Simple Volume,New
Spanned Volume,New Striped Volume,New Mirrored Volume,or New Raid
Volume. I selected New Simple Volume. Then I used Diskpart to clean
and format which is where I am now when this drive is installed in
the first system. I am not sure if I have to reformat now that I am
using this in the second Win7 System but my guess is no. I am now
deciding which system it will remain in before I go through the
Diskpart procedure again if indeed necessary.

Diskpart is the command-line version of Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc)
with its GUI. This is akin to devcon.exe is the command-line version
of Device Manager (devmgmt.msc). That means you should be able to
script the "initialize" function in Disk Management to do it in
diskpart. It's probably the "convert gpt" command in diskpart.

 

[Allen Drake]

Diskpart is the command-line version of Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc)
with its GUI. This is akin to devcon.exe is the command-line version
of Device Manager (devmgmt.msc). That means you should be able to
script the "initialize" function in Disk Management to do it in
diskpart. It's probably the "convert gpt" command in diskpart.

Yes. You are correct.

http://www.partition-tool.com/resource/GPT-disk-partition-manager/convert-mbr-disk-to-gpt-disk.htm

 

[Char Jackson]

I know what they are, but I have never used them. I think they will have
the same limitations as the GUI manager, including the 2 TB limit. Give
it a try. Since you don't care about saving data, you can't hurt anything.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc766465(v=ws.10).aspx

He can if he issues diskpart commands against the wrong volume. ;-)