"GPT header corruption has been detected"

[Noca]

So I am getting this annoying pointless error.  I don't know what GPT header corruption is, but every 2 or 3 times I try to boot, I get this error which forces me to go into the bios, exit without doing anything and then it will boot.  All of my drives work just fine, windows works just fine.  Can someone please tell me what this error means and how to get rid of it or ignore it?

 

 

[NinJake]

GPT is the GUID Partition Table.

 

I would not keep running your system with a possible failing drive down the road. Without knowing what drive is actually failing (im assuming the OS drive), you can uninstall the other drives from your machine except your OS drive and boot a few times to see if the error persists. If so, I'd personally backup your files and then reformat/reinstall your OS on the drive. Hopefully that fixes the issue from happening again.

 

Or - you can try following the instructions on screen to access the "Boot Sector MBR/GPT Recovery policy".

[Skipple]

16 minutes ago, NinJake said:

GPT is the GUID Partition Table.

 

I would not keep running your system with a possible failing drive down the road. Without knowing what drive is actually failing (im assuming the OS drive), you can uninstall the other drives from your machine except your OS drive and boot a few times to see if the error persists. If so, I'd personally backup your files and then reformat/reinstall your OS on the drive. Hopefully that fixes the issue from happening again.

 

Or - you can try following the instructions on screen to access the "Boot Sector MBR/GPT Recovery policy".

Agree. Check  S.M.A.R.T. as well to see if drives are in prefail.

[Noca]

I opened up Crystaldiskinfo and all 4 drives are considered in "good" health.  My nvme 970 evo plus which is my OS drive, is at 100%, another SSD is at 99%, another at 100%, and the HDD doesn't give a percent, just says "good" (Power on count 1826, Power on hours 10979).

[iamnotapop]

@Noca The problem imo is you can attempt to repair your GPT partition table and it could render your win installation completely dead. BUT, corruption tends to get worse rather than better when left on it's own so even if you don't attempt to repair or change anything it could just die on you completely, be glad you've had some form of warning I guess . Out of interest what is your SATA mode set to in your BIOS?

 

Anyway this is what I'd do based on the info you've given so far;

 

First just take a backup of anything you need, even if it's using google drive. Something is better than nothing. 

 

Create some windows installation media if you don't have any already with a spare USB drive if you have one; 

For Win 10: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 

For Win 11: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11

 

You can try running this command in an admin CMD after you've completed the above steps bootrec.exe /fixboot . I've only ever had to use this on non-booting systems so I'm not sure how this works on a live install. 

 

If this doesn't do anything / errors i'd just go for a clean windows install tbh and use diskpart to properly wipe the drive from the install screen after you boot to it;

 

1. During the Windows 10 setup, press Shift + F10 keyboard shortcut to open Command Prompt.
2. When Command Prompt opens, enter diskpart and press Enter.
3. Now enter list disk and press Enter.
A list of all available hard drives will appear. You need to select the disk that you want to wipe.

4. Enter select disk <disk number> and press Enter.
*Example: select disk 0 *

5. Enter clean and press Enter.

6. Enter exit and press Enter.
7. Close Command Prompt and install Windows 10.

 

[Noca]

1 hour ago, iamnotapop said:

@Noca The problem imo is you can attempt to repair your GPT partition table and it could render your win installation completely dead. BUT, corruption tends to get worse rather than better when left on it's own so even if you don't attempt to repair or change anything it could just die on you completely, be glad you've had some form of warning I guess . Out of interest what is your SATA mode set to in your BIOS?

 

Anyway this is what I'd do based on the info you've given so far;

 

First just take a backup of anything you need, even if it's using google drive. Something is better than nothing. 

 

Create some windows installation media if you don't have any already with a spare USB drive if you have one; 

For Win 10: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10 

For Win 11: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows11

 

You can try running this command in an admin CMD after you've completed the above steps bootrec.exe /fixboot . I've only ever had to use this on non-booting systems so I'm not sure how this works on a live install. 

 

If this doesn't do anything / errors i'd just go for a clean windows install tbh and use diskpart to properly wipe the drive from the install screen after you boot to it;

 

1. During the Windows 10 setup, press Shift + F10 keyboard shortcut to open Command Prompt.
2. When Command Prompt opens, enter diskpart and press Enter.
3. Now enter list disk and press Enter.
A list of all available hard drives will appear. You need to select the disk that you want to wipe.

4. Enter select disk <disk number> and press Enter.
*Example: select disk 0 *

5. Enter clean and press Enter.

6. Enter exit and press Enter.
7. Close Command Prompt and install Windows 10.

 

The SATA mode is set to AHCI

 

I'll just try repairing the GPT partition, if that fails I got my USB drive sitting here with the windows 11 installer on it still.  I can always reinstall windows.

[iamnotapop]

22 hours ago, Noca said:

The SATA mode is set to AHCI

 

I'll just try repairing the GPT partition, if that fails I got my USB drive sitting here with the windows 11 installer on it still.  I can always reinstall windows.

Yeah, that's correct - I've seen problems when it's set to RAID without any actual array configured but doesn't look like that's the problem here. 

 

See what happens but make sure you have a backup before anything else...

[Whatisthis]

Disconnect your data drives first to see if the error goes away. They should also be formatted in GPT so you don’t know which drive is responsible for the error. Usually it’s boot drive, but who knows, stranger things have happened.

[iamnotapop]

1 minute ago, Whatisthis said:

Disconnect your data drives first to see if the error goes away. They should also be formatted in GPT so you don’t know which drive is responsible for the error. Usually it’s boot drive, but who knows, stranger things have happened.

huh. Shit. Good point, totally missed that there were multiple drives on the post screen there lol .