GPT Protective Partitions

DatScrubBoi · July 9, 2023

I've found tons of tutorials on how to recover data and switch a GPT drive to MBR, but I can't do that in this case.

I'm trying to move some data between drives right now, because of a lack of SATA ports I'm having to use a USB enclosure for some of them. I soon will also have to get a new motherboard and I want to fresh install Windows.

Using the USB enclosure with the same machine or swapping drives between machines is causing the drive to lock up as a "GPT Protective Partition."

But I can't just make everything MBR because that only supports drives up to 2TB and most of the ones I'm working with are larger.

Is there a way to just disable this stupid feature so a drive containing non-sensitive data can just be read by any machine? I don't even see the point since tons of applications can just recover the data on a protective partition.

I can't find any info on if there's a way to format GPT without the drives becoming protective.

This isn't really about how to deal with my drives right now, I can deal with it, I just want to save myself this headache in the near future.

Thanks for any help.

Kilrah · July 9, 2023

I've been moving GPT drives around machines for ages and have never even seen a mention of that.

Is it only with the USB enclosure or also direct SATA? Some enclosures are not transparent and won't be able to read drives that haven't been formatted in them.

DatScrubBoi · July 9, 2023

It's with the enclosure with some drives taken out of the same system, and also switched to a second PC.

But admittedly, the 2nd PC is a little weird... and I haven't had trouble with this enclosure before but that could be it.

I'd do more testing but I only have these 2 systems available right now, and I had to get out the enclosure because one of my few SATA ports on this new motherboard just fell off.

I guess I just got a little heated and worried that when I RMA this board I might have some issues. So it might not actually be that big of a deal, but I would still love to know of a way to disable it.