Accessing GPT disk in Win XP?

[FatRakoon]

Im chucking XP onto a PC just to play a few older games ( MX MADNESS 2, FredonFighters and so on )

I just hit on a small thing ( and I hit upon a load actually, but this one is annoying me )

The Setup I am using is :-

Gigabyte F2A85XN-WIFI
AMD A10-6800K
2x8GB Corsair
C: = 120GB SSD
D: = 2TB WDBLACK ( or I hope it will be )

In order to actually get it to NOT Blue SCreen on installing, I have set it to IDE not AHCI

I could physically only put 4GB in there but it should still not matter and when I did put just 2GB in, it still had the same issues.

But...

I just cannot get it to access the 2TB Drive.

What I do know, is that the disk is formatted GPT not MBR
I also know that XP is not GTP capable.

The thing is, though, that I can see the disk and the partition on it with Windows Disk Manager. I have also thrown on Partition Wizard and that too can see the disk and the partition but every option to do anything to any part on that disk, is greyed out?

I suppose I could just take the disk out and plonk it into another machine and kill it there and make it into an MBR disk, but Id rather see if I can get it sorted out like this.

I dont care about any data on the thing, and so I chucked in a Win 8.1 USB drive just to get to the disk setup bit, and I wiped the partition off, and when I got back into XP... It was still there?

Anyway, other than taking it out, what are my options for getting use out of the 2TB disk?

As I said, I dont ned the data but I am simply not able to do anything as things are.

 

[demonix]

You'll have to DBAN the drive as wiping the partitions won't remove the fact that it was originally set up as GPT when it was originally initialised.

Once the drive has been nuked, you should be able to set it up properly in XP which will set it up using MBR.

 

[FatRakoon]

Dont know what DBAN is... Dirks Nuke and Boot yeah?

Ok, I will grab that tool then.

As I said, I have no problems at all in just putting the drive into another PC, but Iwant to do it through XP

And yeah, I am aware of the GTP / MBR issues.

Thanks bud.

 

[paradigm]

You don't need DBAN to get rid of GPT. Diskpart can sort that out with "clean". You can even "convert mbr" if you want.

I'd be more tempted to just stick XP on a smaller drive though.

 

[FatRakoon]

yeah, its on an SSD right now plus the 2tb

its only a temporary thing, plus, I dont have anything smaller.

However, in saying that, I have chucked the games I want to onto the SSD anyway, and there is tons of spare room.

 

[FatRakoon]

Oops, sorry, I forgot to mention...

I used DiskPart.

I never thought of that as I had only ever used it once before.

I think off the top of my head I typed in

Diskpart - Got me in.
List disk - 0 and 1 showed up
Select disk 1 - It then said that disk 1 is selected.
clean - It did just that
exit - I got back ot the CLI

Then I opened Disk Manager, it said about initializing, I said ok.

I then converted it back to BASIC and then formatted it and there we are!

Thanks guys... Easy when you know how! LOL

Only issue is, that I am already bored of playing the games...

Im still going to keep this on XP though... You never know when you might need it and I have lots of spare PCs.