Windows 7 cant access info on GPT hard drive

[hmmlee]

Hi there

I have been given an external hard drive and I am attempting to access the info. I am running Windows 7 64.

Windows 7 recognises that the disk is there, but I cannot assign a letter to it in disk management.

The only difference between my other external hard drives and this one is GPT partitioned. I'm not sure what this means..

Does this mean I cannot access the files on the computer? If there is a way to access the files, I would be so grateful if you could let me know how.

Many Thanks

 

[Hawkeye22]

Win7 64 bit can access GPT drives just fine. In order for win7 to boot from a GPT drive, you must be using 64 bit windows and have a UEFI motherboard. Since you aren't booting with it, it should work. There may be something wrong with the enclosure or the drive. The only way to tell is to remove the drive from the enclosure and mount it internally. NOTE: If this is a retail external drive like a WD MyBook, opening the case will void the warranty.

 

[hmmlee]

Win7 64 bit can access GPT drives just fine. In order for win7 to boot from a GPT drive, you must be using 64 bit windows and have a UEFI motherboard. Since you aren't booting with it, it should work. There may be something wrong with the enclosure or the drive. The only way to tell is to remove the drive from the enclosure and mount it internally. NOTE: If this is a retail external drive like a WD MyBook, opening the case will void the warranty.

Thank you for your reply. Much appreciated.
Is there anything else I can do to read the hard drive via Windows without opening the enclosure etc?
When you open computer management it gives the following info on the drive:
Disk 1 basic 74.53gb onine
200mb healthy EFI system partition
74.71gb healthy primary partition
128mb unallocated

But I cannot access anything that is on the drive. When I try to assign a drive name, it wont let me do that..
Any other thoughts or suggestions would be most welcome!
Thanks

 

[Hawkeye22]

I'm not sure why it would do that. Was it previously formatted on a Windows system? If you just need to get the data off of it, try booting with a live linux CD and see if you can mount the drive.

 

[fzabkar]

Try Partition Find and Mount:
http://findandmount.com/