Ages ago I posted about a problem 2 TB external drive. I can't seem to find the thread but still think the following info MAY be helpful.

The problem with the drive was that 1 of the copies of the GPT 'table?' (GPT version of MBR) got corrupted. After this Drive Management would show the drive as a 'GPT Protective Partition'.

Right click on the drive in Drive Management and ALL options are greyed out except for help which is of no help...

I could make the drive work if I used EaseUS Partition Master to setup but, if disconnected from the system, I'd have to setup again.

Well I finally solved it!

First make VERY sure of the drive number!!!

1) Open a Command Prompt as an Admin.

2) Type in 'diskpart' without the quotes and hit enter.

3) Type in 'select disk #' without the quotes where # is replaced by the disk number.

4) Type in 'clean' without the quotes.

5) When success is indicated type 'exit' without the quotes and close the command prompt.

6) Open Disk Management and you will be prompted to activate the drive. Do so and then setup as desired.

I've done this with 2 different drives that seemed to be pretty much toast and both now seem totally fine.

_________________

As a follow-up; while I have not yet fully tested the 2 TB drive as an internal it works as an external without issue. The other drive is a 4 TB that has been proven as an external after the fix and is doing well as to a massive write size test as an internal. The write test is a total of ~3.25 TB. Both drives have already passed diagnostics tests.

<edit>
BTW, since both drives in question are Seagate I used Seagate's 'Sea Tools' for the diagnostics. Both drives have passed S.M.A.R.T. and also both the short drive self tests and the short generic tests. Just don't have the time right now to run the long generic tests.

_________________