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To move data from my old hard drive to my new one I connected my new hard drive to the SATA port on my old PCs motherboard and properly connected the power cables too . I boot up my PC and the harddrive in recognized in both the BIOS and disk manager but I am unable to access files via my computer .

What can I do ? Formatting my drive is not an option .

Also , I am unable to assign disk letter because that option is greyed out

Ps . On disk manager the newly connected drive reads GTP protected partition (if this is at all relevant ) . I am using Win XP 32 bit .

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  • What's the format of the HDD? FAT32?
    – Jay
    Sep 16, 2015 at 9:26
  • @Jay NTFS I believe , the new harddrive I am referring to is actually the primary drive of another computer
    – Vrisk
    Sep 16, 2015 at 9:31
  • Not sure XP supports NTFS of Windows 7 - try booting into linux and expanding from there.
    – Jay
    Sep 16, 2015 at 10:18

3 Answers 3

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the newly connected drive reads GTP protected partition
(if this is at all relevant ). I am using Win XP.

Yes, this is the key to the problem.

Techpumpkin already provided a very short but correct answer. Let me try to expand a little bit on it as to why this is so.


A disk can be used RAW, or it can be partitioned. Different operating systems used different methods of partitioning the disk andf the method used by DOS and early windows versions is the MBR.

MBR is old and has limited options. GTP is much more capable and is used by most modern operating systems. This includes Vista, win 7, 8, 8.1 and 10.

From your post: the ... drive reads GTP protected partition. This basically means that the drive uses the GPT style partition table.

Now XP is old. It does not natively understand how to read a GPT table and thus it does not recognise the disk. This leaves you with three options:

  1. Find or write a driver for XP.
  2. Use different operating system which understands GPT.
  3. Take a backup and convert the disk to MBR. This might not work if the disk is > 2TiB.

For option 3 first success in options 1 or 2 to make a backup. Catch 22...

Easiest solution: Download a live CD and mount both disks. Then copy the data. If you need to keep using the GPT drive on XP then you can clean it or convert it. However considering that XP is no longer supported you might also simply want to upgrade the XP system.

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Windows XP 32 bit cannot read a GPT disk. Try connecting the old drive to the new system. The newer OS should be able to read the old XP disc without a problem. If you don't have any spare SATA ports on the new system you can use an external USB HDD dock, an external HDD USB enclosure or a simple SATA to USB cable kit.

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Try to Use diskpart utility, full explanation at How to Solve the "GPT Protective Partition" Problem Easily and Securely with Excellent Disk Managers?

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  • i suggest you to post the full explanation as blackquoted, a link could eventually expire or get broken. Sep 16, 2015 at 14:35
  • Convert GPT to MBR with Diskpart Command 1: Click "Start", and then select "Run" option. 2: Input "diskpart" at the prompt. 3: Input "List disk", and then press "Enter" 4: Select the disk needs to be converted by inputting "select disk …" 5: Input "Clean" command, and then the disk selected will become an unallocated space, and all data will be deleted.
    – Jusup
    Sep 16, 2015 at 23:07
  • The link still can use at my chrome.
    – Jusup
    Sep 16, 2015 at 23:07

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