GPT formatted Barracuda XT not recognized
Posted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 10:33 pm
I purchased a 3TB Seagate Goflex Desk USB 3.0 external harddrive a while back, and have been using it with no issues. When I first hooked up the drive, I had it initialized in GPT as opposed to MBR to get around the 2.2TB limitation, and successfully formatted it to a full 3TB partition. All was well until I decided I want the drive connected directly to the mobo to free up USB 3.0 ports.
Cracked open the case, removed the drive in once piece, and hooked it up to one of my rigs. First boot, and the BIOS hangs on POST when trying to detect this new drive. I disconnected the drive, rebooted, and after everything came up, I hotplugged the drive in. Win7 64bit recognized new hardware immediately, but asked me to format the drive. Next thing Intel pops up with some message about drive being hooked up to some port multiplier, and only a single drive can be active or something. Shut the rig down, hooked drive up to one of my SATA 6.0 ports that run on the Marvell chipset, only to see it hang on POST again. Disconnected, rebooted into Win7, hotplugged up to the Marvell chipset, and I encountered a similar message from Marvell. This time however, Disk Management was able to detect the drive, but it showed 3 sections. First partition was labeled as RAW data, while the rest of the "unallocated space" was cut in half, right at the 2TB mark, just as an MBR initialized 3TB drive would have.
This almost freaked me out, but I thought maybe it's something with this mobo. Cracked open my other workstation, hooked it up, SAME THING! Boot hangs on POST detecting the stupid drive, hotplugging it after booting into Win7 results in more or less the same situation of improper recognition.
I almost thought my 2.5TB+ of data was lost, until I reconnected the Barracuda XT up to the SATA to USB 3.0 bridge that originally came with the enclosure, and BAM! all the data is readable again.
A little digging around, and I found some ppl with similar situations, not necessarily going from enclosure connected drives to mobo, but rather with a GPT drive going from one computer to another, both running Win7 64bit. Most ppl using these Barracudas removed from enclosures usually initialized the drive after cracking them open, but it bothers me that a drive that's not mechanically or electrically defective can hang the BIOS on POST. With so many ppl cracking these Goflex Desk drives to use as internals, I don't think Seagate implemented any kinda special firmware to only allow these drives to work with their SATA to USB bridges either.
That being said, I hope someone can point me in the right direction to resolve this. Unfortunately, formatting the drive isn't an option, as I don't have any spare drives to dump over 2.5TB+ of data.
Much thanks in advance!!!
Cracked open the case, removed the drive in once piece, and hooked it up to one of my rigs. First boot, and the BIOS hangs on POST when trying to detect this new drive. I disconnected the drive, rebooted, and after everything came up, I hotplugged the drive in. Win7 64bit recognized new hardware immediately, but asked me to format the drive. Next thing Intel pops up with some message about drive being hooked up to some port multiplier, and only a single drive can be active or something. Shut the rig down, hooked drive up to one of my SATA 6.0 ports that run on the Marvell chipset, only to see it hang on POST again. Disconnected, rebooted into Win7, hotplugged up to the Marvell chipset, and I encountered a similar message from Marvell. This time however, Disk Management was able to detect the drive, but it showed 3 sections. First partition was labeled as RAW data, while the rest of the "unallocated space" was cut in half, right at the 2TB mark, just as an MBR initialized 3TB drive would have.
This almost freaked me out, but I thought maybe it's something with this mobo. Cracked open my other workstation, hooked it up, SAME THING! Boot hangs on POST detecting the stupid drive, hotplugging it after booting into Win7 results in more or less the same situation of improper recognition.
I almost thought my 2.5TB+ of data was lost, until I reconnected the Barracuda XT up to the SATA to USB 3.0 bridge that originally came with the enclosure, and BAM! all the data is readable again.
A little digging around, and I found some ppl with similar situations, not necessarily going from enclosure connected drives to mobo, but rather with a GPT drive going from one computer to another, both running Win7 64bit. Most ppl using these Barracudas removed from enclosures usually initialized the drive after cracking them open, but it bothers me that a drive that's not mechanically or electrically defective can hang the BIOS on POST. With so many ppl cracking these Goflex Desk drives to use as internals, I don't think Seagate implemented any kinda special firmware to only allow these drives to work with their SATA to USB bridges either.
That being said, I hope someone can point me in the right direction to resolve this. Unfortunately, formatting the drive isn't an option, as I don't have any spare drives to dump over 2.5TB+ of data.
Much thanks in advance!!!