Transferring data to new HDDs to install into newer PC GPT protective error.

Hi, 

I've an old PC I've been using for years, served well, but having problems with it. So I bought a second hand newer PC. I'm wanting to take the data off my E drive which is a local HDD, and an F drive an external USB drive and copy the data to two new hdd's . To do this I bought a usb sata hdd unit, and then formatted the drives and moved the data to each one respectively. Didn't seem to be any issue there.

Then at first I tried to connect the new HDDs to a sata expansion card which I'd added to the newer PC. No luck with that at all, I ran hwinfo64 which said that the motherboard didn't support it. So, I connected one of the newer HDDs to the existing sata port and used disk management to take a look. It said that the drive was GPT protected and I couldn't do anything with it. I looked into that and found that Easus partition manager could change to MBR without losing data. I got a protected error when I tried that. Their live chat teamviewered into my PC told me I couldn't do anything other than format it, or pay for further tech support. I asked for some guidance and they disconnected!

So, although it may sound like I know what I'm doing, I don't really. I'm going off info I find on the net. 

My question therefore is how do I transfer my data off the old PC onto these new drives, then put the drives in the newer PC and have them ready to use?  I'm also going to swap the SSD boot drive and the memory if it will allow.

The OS on both is Windows 10 64 bit, I can give details of motherboard on the new one if that's relevant, but hopefully I've given enough here to get some help?

Edited by hamluis, 08 February 2024 - 10:34 AM.
Moved from System Bldg to Disk Mgmt - Hamluis.

If neither of the drives is a home for an operating system...you could simply move the drives intact, with no transfer of files.  I don't see your problem.  It doesn't matter if a data drive is connected by USB or directly to the motherboard...such drives can simply be moved from one system to another.

I believe that GPT is meaningful only on drives which are bootable/reflect an O/S install and are larger than 2TB.

What are the sizes of the drives in question?

Louis

Edited by hamluis, 07 February 2024 - 09:49 AM.

Hi the drives are 4tb and 6tb respectively. It's not so much moving existing drives, I'm wanting to copy the data from my existing drive E (currently 2tb) to a 4tb hdd, and my 4tb drive F (external usb) to a 6tb HDD, then place both these drives into the newer PC.

So when I do this, and prepare them on my existing PC via this USB sata enclosure, I then move them to my new PC and the drives show this GPT protective message and apparently the way round this is to format them in the new PC, but that loses the data.

So today, I did that with one of the drives. On the new PC with the new drive fitted, I used diskpart to "clean" the drive, then initialised it, then prepared the partition with Easeus. It then showed as a 4tb drive E on the new PC. I take it out, put it in the sata enclosure to copy the files from my old PC and it says GPT protection again for that drive. Bleeping computer!

I don't use GPT on my system...but it sounds to me as if you are trying to modify 2 large drives into MBR...when the partition size on MBR cannot accommodate such large drives.  GPT must be used (as I understand it) if you have a drive over 2TB in size and you want to employ the full size of that drive as one partition in your system, rather than being limited to the 2TB max partition size for MBR drives.

Reference.

Louis

GPT is used with the UEFI such as Windows 8,10 and 11.

The older Windows OS use MBR.

I am using Windows 10 and 11 and all the installed drives are GPT (using 250GB to 2TB drives). 

I don't use GPT on my system...but it sounds to me as if you are trying to modify 2 large drives into MBR...when the partition size on MBR cannot accommodate such large drives.  GPT must be used (as I understand it) if you have a drive over 2TB in size and you want to employ the full size of that drive as one partition in your system, rather than being limited to the 2TB max partition size for MBR drives.

 

Reference.

 

Louis

 

 

Hi Louis

They're not being modified to MBR they're GPT buddy, that's why I'm getting the GPT errors. As I say I'm using diskpart with the clean command, then initialising and it shows as a 4tb partition. The problem lies when I then move the drive back to the USB sata unit, it still sees it as a 4tb but it says protected, and I can't write to it, unless I use diskpart and clean again, then the new pc gives the protected GPT error.

Edited by audiomonk, 08 February 2024 - 08:36 AM.

GPT is used with the UEFI such as Windows 8,10 and 11.

The older Windows OS use MBR.

I am using Windows 10 and 11 and all the installed drives are GPT (using 250GB to 2TB drives). 

Same here , all drives are GPT on both PCs. I just can't get the data onto the new drives and have it readable on the new PC. 

Disk management on my old PC sees the drive, but says GPT protected. So I have to use diskpart and the clean command, then initialise it. I can then see it as a GPT drive. I copy data to it, then plug the drive into the new PC and get this gpt protection message. Same in reverse, if I initialise on the new PC and put the drive back to the old .. same gpt protection and it's unreadable.

What if, maybe,  try to switch the UEFI off and return to Legacy, in the BIOS settings. Would the drive(s) be then readable by the OS?

Did you try running a live Linux distro (run from a USB stick and this doesn't install as it stays in memory or RAM) to try to get around the GPT protection?

I have no idea of either of these two suggestions would actually work, just a thought or two.

I give that a try, and no difference (legacy).. am not sure how a linux distro would help in all honesty. I'm not familiar with linux, I need it to be Windows as all my data from windows software is on the new drives. Appreciate the thoughts though. Really getting stuck on this one.

Oh I meant use live Linux to run the desktop (without Windows) and then open the secured drives and then copy and transfer those files to another drive (maybe C for example).

Really have no idea if this works, just a thought.

Thanks for the suggestion, here's something new. I discovered a solution was to upgrade the firmware in the USB sata drive. Miraculously that worked in so far as no more GPT protective errors, the drive formatted in the new PC is now recognised by the USB Sata drive (Sabrent) . So I set about copying data to the drive last night. When I plugged it in to the new PC, it recognised the drive still, but was showing nothing more than one folder. One I had manually copied, the rest of the copying was done with a file sync program. Infuriating.

So now I am manually copying and pasting the entire drive and pasting it to the new one to see if that works.

Thank you for the update.

Hope it all works OK for you in the outcome.

Thank you, 

Well the good news is that updating the firmware in the Sabrent device did the trick. Using perfect backup as a sync tool didn't work, but using Teracopy did. It transferred over 2tb of data to the new 4tb drive and the new PC recognised the drive and contents. Using the same technique moved over 4tb to the new 6tb drive. 

But I hit another snag, the new pc is pretty poor it turns out (motherboard only supports 8gb ram) and it's slower than my existing PC. I mainly bought it for the gfx card which was worth more than I paid for the PC. Still, that's nothing to do with the original question, which I've now resolved as being a problem with the Sabrent USB Sata enclosure. Upgrade Firmware !!!