Trouble with new 6TB drive

Hi,
I have a 6TB drive that I can't access. From new I plugged it into my old system via usb and it only showed up as 2TB. Didn't think much of it till I plugged it into my new system only to find that it didn't show up in file explorer. It showed up in Disk Management, but all the options for both of the GPT and the unallocated partitions are greyed out, except properties, but that doesn't show any problems that I can see. So there doesn't seem to be much I can do to access this disk, CrystalDiskInfo says the drive is fine

Anyone have any suggestions on how I might be able to fix this?

 

You've already got one GPT partition on it - delete everything and then try creating a new one. The controller appears to be familiar with the full size of the disk given the two sizes of allocated + unallocated.

Alternatively,

1. plug in into a sata/sas port directly
2. try a more modern usb interface board

 

i suspect the usb controller is limited to 32bit logical block addressing even though the firmware is reporting itself as larger to the controller/OS.

You don't say who made the drive, but this may be helpful

https://www.seagate.com/au/en/support/kb/troubleshooting-gpt-protective-partition-issues-207837en/

https://www.diskgenius.com/how-to/gpt-protective-partition.php

 

It's a seagate ironwolf drive.

I have plugged it into my new systems sata ports, it's the only place it shows up now. There is no available option to delete anything, thus the problem I face

 

Try Diskpart (lookup google)

 

I had a problem like that once. I couldn't delete a partition and format a disk because the partition was protected. Diskpart didn't work but Acronis Disk Director did it without a problem.

 

Could you do that on the trial version or did you have to sign up?

 

I had a version of Disk Director that came together with Acronis True Image. It wasn't a trial version. A trial version might work so you could test the program to see if it was worth buying.

 

Yep. Start a command prompt as admin and type:
"Diskpart"
"list disk" (confirm that the 6TB drive is Disk 0)
"select disk 0" (or whatever disk it is)
"clean" (this will delete the disk. make sure the right disk is selected)

Then if all goes well go into disk manager and format it. Or you can format from diskpart. But easier from disk manager.

 

Thanks for the help everyone! Looks like diskpart did the job nicely, currently formatting the drive

 

Good to hear. Diskpart worked for you but not for me because the disk I attempted to use Diskpart on once had Windows installed on it which meant there was a hidden system reserved partition & Diskpart refused to touch it. The disk was useless until I discovered that Acronis Disk Director would happily delete the system reserved partition.

 

select the partition then use the override command.

delete partition override

or just select the disk and use the clean command

 

I think I tried those commands but they didn't work. The clean command definitely didn't work. I don't remember if I tried the other command. I followed instructions I found on Google to do it and nothing worked. Diskpart being part of Windows 10 wouldn't override a partition rule made by Windows 10 whereas Acronis Disk Director overrode the rule. I didn’t use Disk Director however installed in Windows 10. I installed Disk Director in an earlier version of Windows and then I connected the drive with the system reserved partition on it that I wanted to delete, via USB.