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    Hard Drive Partition

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by Laptopz, Aug 11, 2011.

  1. Laptopz

    Laptopz Notebook Consultant

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    I just bought a new 2.5TB external hard drive and I was partitioning it into 2.. but the the thing is, there is this extra 280GBs that refuse to work!

    So I decided to just extend the main partition back so I can have my full external back.. but it won't let me extend the partition! (Picture below)

    Does anyone have any idea why I can't do anything with that 280GBs? :(
     

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  2. AESdecryption

    AESdecryption Notebook Evangelist

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    Partition the HDD partition (unallocated) to NTFS, then you can assign a Drive Letter or Path to allow the computer to write to it.
     
  3. thetoast

    thetoast Notebook Evangelist

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    You'll need to switch to a GPT storage style, if you want it all in one partition.
     
  4. Laptopz

    Laptopz Notebook Consultant

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    How do I partition the unallocated one at all when I can't do anything to it (as shown in the pictures, I can't click on the "new simple volume") ?\

    I did a quick search on GPT, and I'm running Windows 7 64 bit so I don't think I would need it? (I'm also not sure how to switch it to GPT)
     
  5. apple13140

    apple13140 Newbie

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    Because your hard disk is 2.5TB, but your hard disk is MBR, and as we know, MBR could only recogonize the hard disk size which is under 2TB, so you can not handle the unallocated space or extend the exist 2TB partition. the only solution is change MBR to GPT as thetoast said. so, if there is no data on your F partition, you can delete it and then initialize the disk to GPT disk.
    (The step: right click the DISK 2 and choose "Initialize Disk" to proceed)
    If there is important data on it, you need clone to another disk then delete it to initialize.
    I hope this is helpful for your understanding and hope you could solve your problem ASAP. :)
     
  6. thetoast

    thetoast Notebook Evangelist

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    In the same Storage management screen as above, right-click on the box where it says "Disk 2". There should be an option to convert to GPT.. Though you may need to delete the existing partition.

    Edit: yeah, as said above :)
     
  7. Laptopz

    Laptopz Notebook Consultant

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    Thank you! Converting it to GPT worked :)