# How to format GPT to NTFS



## d3adpoetic

I took the 30GB harddrive out of my old zune planning on using it as a usb drive. I bought the appropriate enclosure, put it together, plugged it in and planned to format it and be done... little did i know it uses GPT partitioning. It doesnt necessarilly have to be formatted to NTFS, i believe most usb drives are FAT32?? Anyway, Windows sees the drive as a usb device, but nothing more. It will not allow me to format it or do anything with it. I have tried disk management (it says its not ready when i try to "initialize disk"), windows xp recovery console (tried "diskpart"), also tried diskpart while in windows, and gparted in ubuntu... nothing can do anything with it. This is very frustrating to me because i waited 3 weeks for the enclosure to finally arrive. If anyone has any suggestions that would be great. Thanks.

Also, the drive is plugged into the enclosure correctly. I made that mistake the first time and the LED didnt light up. I switched it, and now it lights up correctly and windows sees it.


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## tlarkin

In Windows, under Computer Management > Disk management you can remove the partitions and recreate a new one.


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## d3adpoetic

tlarkin said:


> In Windows, under Computer Management > Disk management you can remove the partitions and recreate a new one.



I've tried going into Disk Management. It shows in the list, but it's greyed out. There's no option to remove the partitions or format it, the only thing i can seem to do with it is "initialize disk". When i try that a window comes up asking if i want to either stick with the GPT partition table, or choose MBR. Whichever i choose it gives me an error and says the disk is not ready.

I'll post a screenshot when i get home in a few hours... maybe that would help. Thanks for the comment though.

EDIT: I was looking around google again and i stumbled on this...

http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197

Anyone know if this has promise or not?


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## tlarkin

d3adpoetic said:


> I've tried going into Disk Management. It shows in the list, but it's greyed out. There's no option to remove the partitions or format it, the only thing i can seem to do with it is "initialize disk". When i try that a window comes up asking if i want to either stick with the GPT partition table, or choose MBR. Whichever i choose it gives me an error and says the disk is not ready.
> 
> I'll post a screenshot when i get home in a few hours... maybe that would help. Thanks for the comment though.
> 
> EDIT: I was looking around google again and i stumbled on this...
> 
> http://files.extremeoverclocking.com/file.php?f=197
> 
> Anyone know if this has promise or not?




You need to format the boot sector of the HD.  Grab any kind of DOS boot utility and boot from it.

Once at the command line do this



		Code:
	

cd <drive letter of drive>

fdisk /mbr


That will wipe out the boot sector as the disk management in Windows cannot.


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## d3adpoetic

ok ill try that. i dont recall it ever having a drive letter, but ill look again.


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## tlarkin

d3adpoetic said:


> ok ill try that. i dont recall it ever having a drive letter, but ill look again.



Windows will want to assign it one, that is how Windows operates, it is sort of a dumb OS.

You can just remove all hard disks from your computer except for that one, boot to the command prompt and run that command. I think you could run it form the recovery console too, but the recovery console may want an installation of Windows to already exist.


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## d3adpoetic

Ok, so i just find a DOS boot utility, put it on a floppy and boot from that? Im assuming once i remove the other drives it will be considered the C drive?

Thanks for the help.


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## tlarkin

d3adpoetic said:


> Ok, so i just find a DOS boot utility, put it on a floppy and boot from that? Im assuming once i remove the other drives it will be considered the C drive?
> 
> Thanks for the help.



I haven't done this is a while so memory is a bit rusty.  For data loss reasons remove all internal HDs except the one you need formatted.  Then boot off the disk and run that command.  Then toss your windows disk back in and use it to create the partition in Windows.


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## d3adpoetic

Ok ill give that a try later today and post the results. Thanks again.


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## Cromewell

Just to be sure you are aware before you recreate the partitions, you will lose your data.


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## d3adpoetic

Cromewell said:


> Just to be sure you are aware before you recreate the partitions, you will lose your data.



It's just an old 30gb zune harddrive, i dont care about losing anything on it. Thanks for the heads up though.


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## d3adpoetic

UPDATE: I got it to work a few days ago, and now enjoy yet another usb drive with no real purpose for it in mind, but hey, its more space.

Turns out the wire inside connecting to the circuit board was upside down. Not sure if that was my fault cause i never unplugged that side before. Anyway, i didnt have to do any fancy DOS commands. I plugged it in, it was recognized, and it worked. Needless to say i had to format it, but it wasn't a hassle at all.

Thanks for the help. I guess this was another lesson of "look for the obvious things first"


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