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Note: I thought I had one problem regarding this topic, but that has since evolved. Below is the pared down version.

After some problems, restarts, and a complete reinstall of Windows 8, my WD 3TB hard drive is inaccessible from Windows 8 or Linux Mint. The drive was originally formatted as GPT through Disk Management when my computer was Windows 7. The drive shows up in Windows 8 Disk Management as Disk 1 (Basic, 2794.52 GB, Online) - 2048.00 GB Healthy (GPT Protective Partition), 746.52 GB Unallocated and in Linux Mint gpart as Type ee, 2980GB, MBR: Protective, GPT: No.

During the reinstall process, I used a Windows 7 disk once and it was able to access the entire disk, so it is not a disc continuity error. I have also updated all drivers from the manufacturer of my computer including RAID controller to no avail. Through external research I've seen that the major problem that would constitute this is that the motherboard doesn't support it or the system is x86 not x86-64. Neither of those hold up, as my motherboard supports it (as evidenced by my prior Win 7 install) and my computer is x86-64 (so is the operating system).

If there is anyone who can point me in the right direction, I would be appreciative. This was my main data drive and though it's mostly backed up, there are some things that I didn't get a chance to before it was rendered inaccessible. I have access to multiple linux distributions as well as the windows 8 install media. Thanks to anyone who can help.

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  • I suspect you used fdisk on Linux to examine your disk. Fdisk does not support GPT disks. You need to used parted or gdisk to view and manipulate GPT disks
    – fpmurphy
    Nov 7, 2012 at 14:37
  • First you formatted the drive, do file recovery on it now, the solution to the larger problem will mean data loss after you do so on the unallocated partition. Your disk is current using a MBR partition which means its limited to 2TB.
    – Ramhound
    Jun 26, 2014 at 0:15

1 Answer 1

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I had the same problem, this software fixed for me: http://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/repairing.html

I had to make a boot usb disk with parted magic http://partedmagic.com/ in order to get the gdisk, I made the usb bootable with the rufus utility (search google for that one)

and then booted from it, ran the gdisk from the terminal, followed the instructions on the first link and it should fix it as it worked for me after having the same problem as you. If you dont know how to write commands in a shell get a friend that knows a little bit of linux.

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