4TB WD black issue

mrsim

mrsim

mrsim

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Location
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hello the forum,
i have a small issue,recently i had to clean install my system,(win 10),but after doing so my 4TB WD black HD seems to have split itself in two and one half of these two partitions refuses to work,after much googling i discovered that win uses MBR and i need to format the drive in GPT in order for me to use the whole thing and this is where i am stuck as windows and my partition software refuse to allow me to do so
so here i am hoping i can get some help from you wonderful members here in getting the rest of my storage to work again
 
Sometimes drives can disappear, what happens when you go into administrative tools, computer management, Storage/Disck Management. Can you see both partitions. I think sometimes you may have to "activate" it or something like that.
 
thank you for your response,yes the partitions are visible and i can activate one but not the other...after a little more reading from googleing today it also seems like maybe the system has to maybe boot in something like EUFI...i am still a little clueless
 
If windows is installed on this drive, you have no choice but to wipe it and start again.

You'll need:
windows 10 ISO
a USB stick - you're going to lose the contents of this too!!
a copy of rufus - https://rufus.akeo.ie/
a motherboard capable of UEFI boot.

1) insert the USB stick and then run rufus and see the screenshot on the homepage. On the the dialog where it says iso image, click the disk icon to the right of it and browse for your windows 10 ISO.
2) on the partition scheme and target system type dropdown box, make sure it says GPT partition for UEFI just like the screenshot on the homepage.
3) click start and let it do its thing
4) boot from the newly created USB stick and follow windows setup to the custom drive selection screen.
5) press SHIFT + F10 to open a command prompt window.
6) type

Code: 
diskpart

7) type

Code: 
list disk

8) check the index of your 4TB drive - it would usually be 0
9) type

Code: 
select disk 0

substitute the 0 with the actual index of your drive if it's different.

10) now we're going to lose everything!!. type

Code: 
clean

11) now back on the windows 10 setup screen, press the refresh button and you should see the whole of your 4TB as unallocated space. you can install to this or create a smaller partition for windows. it should automatically set itself as GPT when you do.

12) that's it. :p
 
@marc2003,thank you for this detailed guide,i actually have an SSD which windows boots from...will i still need to follow these same instructions
 
Nope, the good news is you can keep your windows install just fine. You'll still need to backup anything on the 4TB drive you want to keep because you still have to wipe it.

You just need to follow steps 6-10 from an administrator command prompt within windows. You can right click the start button to open one.

Obviously take care in step 7/8 because your 4TB drive probably won't have an index of 0 like I said.

After running the clean command, you can open disk management and it may ask you to initialise the disk. Make sure you select GPT at this point. Now you can partition however you like.
 
@marc2003
thanks again i actually wiped the HD the other day anyway...was nothing i didn't have stored on my external drives so no great loss....thank you so much for your time i will get to it and let you know my results
 
so i followed the steps you mentioned and my 4TB is listed as disk 1 not disk 0...not sure what to do...just wipe it like you said in the instructions...?
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ok cannot seem to fins an edit thread button anywhere am attempting to upload a pic but every link i use from imgur just does not want to show here...?
 
Not the same issue but just in case it could help you...

One of my HDDs suddenly disappeared from Windows (no warnings from CrystalDiskInfo - it was reported as healthy).
The drive showed in the bios but not in Windows disk management. My fix was...

1. go to Control Panel > System and security > Administrative Tools
2. select Windows memory diagnostic

PC will reboot, run diagnostic and restart
Although no errors were found my HDD is now working in Windows just like before. Have no idea how this (easy) fix works but it has done the trick for me - hopefully it'll work for you too.
 
Well in my original post, I did say change the number if it wasn't 0...

So all you need to do is...

Code: 
select disk 1

and then

Code: 
clean

clean is the destructive command so it's imperative you select the right disk first!!!
 
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hey @marc2004,
well that worked a treat now the whole partition is in one big lump 3725gb which is awesome...so hopefully my last question...how do i now fully use all of the space on this HDD as when i go to create a new D) drive to use it both windows and minitool partition wizard will only allow me to use 2047gb and disk management shows it all as one single drive on the left in numeric yet still shows it as 2 seperate partitions...as google seems to be telling me is this because windows 10 refuses to allow me to alocate the whole drive because it's still in MBR and not GPT when i attempt to convert it to GPT it stays greyed out am i missing something here mate
 
@mrsim

Sorry, I forgot about this thread. After running the clean command on the disk, it should have prompted you with a dialog to initialise the disk the next time you opened disk management...

I googled to find a screenshot... https://dealsaday.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/article_attachments/203153439/Select_GPT_MBR.png

You'll have to try running the clean command again to see if you get this.

edit: You can see in my sig that I have a 4TB and 3TB drive in my system. They both have partitions well in excess of 2TB because they are using GPT.

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@marc2003,so i tried again the method to clean the disk and i received an error this time after typing 'clean' it came back as

"virtual disk service error: Clean is not allowed on the disk containing the current boot,system,pagefile,hibernation volume"

once again am not sure of this meaning as this partition is not in use at all it doesn't even have an allocated letter but 500mb of ths partition is marked with this title in disk management below

"system reserved 500mb NTFS Healthy (system,active,primary partition)"


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Well you're in a right pickle now.... I can only assume you've re-installed windows on the 500GB drive since last week and the 4TB drive was connected at the time? I'm pretty sure it's impossible to end up with that system reserved partition under any other circumstances?? For future reference, always unplug all other drives when installing windows - except the drive you want to install on (obviously!! :p)

I've got a horrible feeling that if you power down and unplug the 4TB drive, windows will refuse to boot. Try that and see...
 
ok...so this is a pre-built system from overclockers themselves and i have just taken a look at the back of the machine...what a bloody mess...i thought these guys were supposed to be professionals when they created you a pre-build...seems £1700 is not worth their time doing a decent cable management job it seems,it's funny i should have been wary when i first received the machine and the person who had built it had a cable covering the usb 2 ports...i had to take it to a computer shop just to get that fixed...now it seems i am going to have to spend my saturday cable managing the thingh myself....and never guess what...i have never even gone near anything like this before...this should be fun
it's basically THIS ONE but an earlier version with 6700k and 980ti,(i feel so robbed right about now as i paid the same price but for inferior hardware,and not too long ago either),but this will teach me to be more patient and read before going in the deep end...i will let you know how i get on as i cannot even access the HD there are too many cables in the way and i will need time and daylight to work with....thank you so much for all your help mate.....may i ask...if the p.c. refuses to boot does this mean i will yet again have to reinstall win 10 but first unplug the HD
 
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