Ext 4TB HD not shown in Win XP

[Da Mail Man]

Ok-

Here is this mornings' tinkering with this POS. Following will be about 32 (yes, 32) screen shot picts I took. I WILL be deleting them in a day or so to save space. I did say I would post these.

Here is picture key:

1. Computer booting up.

2. Boot device menu

3. The device menu

4. Selection the drive containing partition Wizard.

5. USB booting up and loading files.

6. Entering partition Wizard program.

7. Entering partition Wizard program.

8. Screen resolution selection.

9. Option to continue booting partition Wizard.

10. Partition Wizard booting up logo.

11. Partial menu of one partition of 4gb ext hdd.

12. View all of hard drive - disc 1, showing partitions. Note; I will go on to change these before the end of these pictures. In each case, I have fooled around with this, it appears that I have never been able to get two usable recognizable partitions.

13. I clicked on "check file system" to verify partition one is NTFS.

14. I've went so far as to click "set active" to see what effect this would have when I put the hard drive back into its external hd case and connect to computer.

15. Close up of the first partition apparently indicating is MBR.

16. A picture of me playing around with setting that partition active and inactive.

17. I attempted to click on the unallocated 1678.0GB partition to see if I could format it and got the following message displayed.

18. I attempted to see if I could extend "D" middle partition and incorporate the unallocated space so that I would have only 2 partitions.

19. My attempt at merging partitions.

20. Another pict.

21. Another picture.

22. Another picture -- playing around with type of file system.

23. Made additional changes to see the effect. This one is the 4 TB hard drive, disc 2 the partition Wizard program on USB drive. Notice drive one indicating one part MBR and in the drive label NTFS.

24. Decided to see what would happen if I change MBR to GPT in drop down menu.

25. Another process pict.

26. Showing partition as being GPT.

27. Another picture.

28. Close-up picture of first partition.

29. Close up picture of second partition.

30. Shutting down program to remove hard drive and place into external hard drive case and reinstall my main pre-existing hard drive which I want to back up to the external hard drive.

31. A picture windows XP hardware device manager -- showing both hard drives (my main original and external hard drive in enclosure).

32. All that pops up when I energize the external hard drive is the icon saying "safely remove hardware".
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Picts deleted to save space.

 

[Da Mail Man]

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Picts deleted to save space.

 

[Da Mail Man]

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Picts deleted to save space.

 

[Da Mail Man]

26 - 32

Picts deleted to save space.

 

[johnb35]

It's possible that the system may be corrupt to where it won't properly identify the drive. I've seen happen on windows 7 machines trying to detect usb flash drives. Once you run some general system cleanup maintenance programs, it detects it just fine. When was the last time windows was reinstalled on this machine? Does the system detect other usb drives? By all rights, the partitions should be detected since they are under the 2tb limit. But I know this may also be a bios limitation issue.
?

 

[Da Mail Man]

**CAPS ARE NOT YELLING AND ONLY SERVE TO SEGREGATE PARTS OF THE CONVERSATION**

It's possible that the system may be corrupt to where it won't properly identify the drive. I've seen happen on windows 7 machines trying to detect usb flash drives.
ANYTHING I PUSH INTO A USB DRIVE THIS WILL SOUND OFF AS IT DETECTS IT.

Once you run some general system cleanup maintenance programs, it detects it just fine. When was the last time windows was reinstalled on this machine?
ABOUT 2-3 WEEKS AGO

Does the system detect other usb drives?
YES, IT DOES

By all rights, the partitions should be detected since they are under the 2tb limit. But I know this may also be a bios limitation issue.
WELL, AS I WAS REMINDED HERE, 2GB'S IS LIMIT ON XP AND SO YOU CAN SEE BY POSTED PICTS.

*THINKING I MAY START FROM SCRATCH AGAIN - YEAH, DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AND GETTING THE SAME RESULTS -BLAH BLAH BLAH....(grin).

 

[Da Mail Man]

Uh, John said to format using MBR, not GPT.

NTFS is what XP uses for its file system, and has nothing to do with MBR or GPT in this scenario.

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I did...I just "tinkered" with GPT to see what would happen...I have divided the hdd up into 2 partitions of less that 2gb's and formatted same as being NTFS and still no recognition by computer........Going to start from scratch early this evening.

 

[johnb35]

By all rights, the partitions should be detected since they are under the 2tb limit. But I know this may also be a bios limitation issue.
WELL, AS I WAS REMINDED HERE, 2GB'S IS LIMIT ON XP AND SO YOU CAN SEE BY POSTED PICTS.

But what I meant is that I do believe some XP machines needed a bios update in order to even detect 2tb drives correctly. If you know of someone that has a 2tb external, you can try connecting it and if it see it then you know the problem lies with 4tb drive.

 

[Da Mail Man]

I don't know anyone with an ext hdd.........I have a smaller ext hdd less that 1gb but, that obviously doesn't count here...... I just got finished running a diagnostics ck on the HD and all checked ok........After a bit, i will start tinkering again - maybe think about my sledge hammer.....

 

[Da Mail Man]

Did a bit more tinkering before quitting for the evening...Split up the hd making all partitions smaller than 1tb... MBR or GPT makes no difference (see attached picts)......

I Even affixed the drive directly into the computer instead of the EXT drive case with same results.....I currently have a 1 TB drive in my Dell which I am using now and it is the same manufacturer.

IF, and I say IF this Dell had windows 7 in it, would it "accept" the drive (I DON"T plan on changing OS"s)? ...Would not the bios be and remain the same with xp or 7?View attachment 8935 View attachment 8936 View attachment 8937 View attachment 8938

 

[Darren]

I hope you appreciate how much harder you're making this for yourself by trying to force technology from 2 different decades to work together. Just use a modern OS and save yourself the hassle, you've put more effort into trying to fix the problem than you would just eliminating it entirely and use an OS that isn't old enough to have a driver's license.

 

[Da Mail Man]

I hope you appreciate how much harder you're making this for yourself by trying to force technology from 2 different decades to work together.
WELL LOOK! - IS THIS NOT MY COMPUTER?...OF COURSE IT IS!...IS ANYONE HERE USING IT? - OF COURSE NOT.....THEN WHY DOES EVERYONE KEEP FORCING THEIR SPECIFIC TASTES ON ME?....JUST SIMPLY CONSIDER THE PROBLEM AT HAND AND GO FROM THERE...I APPRECIATE THE HELP BUT, NOT THE SNIDE COMMENTS.

Just use a modern OS and save yourself the hassle,
AGAIN - MY CHOICE OF OS'S AND NOT ANYONE ELSE'S AND YES, IT IS A HASSLE BUT, MORE MINE THAN ANYONE ELSE'S.

you've put more effort into trying to fix the problem than you would just eliminating it entirely
YES - I WANT TO FIND A FIX FOR THIS...CHOPPING UP A 4TB HD TO SMALLER PARTITIONS THAT XP SHOULD RECOGNIZE AS INDIVIDUAL DRIVES SEEMS TO BE AT THE FOREFRONT...I USE A 1TB HARD DRIVE IN THIS COMPUTER AND IT WORKS WELL.

and use an OS that isn't old enough to have a driver's license.
IMO, AFTER XP, EVERYTHING SUCKS BUT, I DON'T FORCE MY OPINION OR TASTES ONTO ANYONE HERE YET, THE REVERSE SEEMS TO NOT APPLY.

 

[Agent Smith]

What I am going to do is start from scratch tomorrow late morning - format the entire drive as NTFS and see if I can split into 2 parts.

That right there after you were told like three times to use MBR is what doesn't grab me right.

 

[Da Mail Man]

That right there after you were told like three times to use MBR is what doesn't grab me right.

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[Da Mail Man]

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[Cromewell]

The issue is that while you lose space above 2TB, 32-bit XP cannot access GPT drives. And 64-bit XP can only read from them. So if you want to use this drive on XP you don't have a choice, you have to use MBR.

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/pr...windows-xp-read-write-and-boot-from-gpt-disks

If you were to switch to windows 7, you could use the disk as a data drive. You could boot from it if you were running 64-bit windows 7 and have a UEFI based system rather than BIOS

 

[Da Mail Man]

Isn't that what I have done as reflected by posts 34 and 35?...It appears that, according to those picts, I have MBR.

Earlier this morning, I took the 4tb disc and installed it into computer directly...I placed an XP disc into optical drive and successfully loaded same into partition the xp cd disc created....

Right clicking on the xp icon for that hard drive is indicating used space is 3.21 GB, free space is 1.63GB, and capacity is 1.63 TB...I have not yet put in SP3.

 

[Cromewell]

Isn't that what I have done as reflected by posts 34 and 35?...It appears that, according to those picts, I have MBR.

It looked like you were trying to call out the missing space above 2TB. The disk is clearly visible in your tool. Does this run in windows or is it a bootable utility?

 

[johnb35]

Does "my computer" show the partition that is 2tb?

Right clicking on the xp icon for that hard drive is indicating used space is 3.21 GB, free spa

So are you saying you installed xp to this partition?

 

[Da Mail Man]

The picts posted 34/35 were taken with

It looked like you were trying to call out the missing space above 2TB. The disk is clearly visible in your tool. Does this run in windows or is it a bootable utility?

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My total intent in/at doing all this is to be able to do occasional incremental back-ups of my entire hard drive....Without my xp computer recognizing the hd or it's separate partitions It still remains a problem....

Using the partition tool (PT) I "worked" that 4tb hd to 2 - 4 separate partitions AND with MBR as indicated by the 34+35 posts.....The computer still did not recognize the ext hd in any respect....BUT, when i installed the hd in the computer and loaded/installed WIN XP from cd into it, the computer "saw" it...NOTE - i did not reinstall it back into the EXT hdd housing.

It would seem that I have 2-3 tb's unused as of this point and need to use them/it.....Either I am doing something incorrectly or----?....The PT said was formatted yet, feeding it back through a working usb port found same results.....I am wondering what the XP DISC did that I am missing or, teh PT didn't do.