Initialisation query transferring an External HDD to internal

For the past few years I've been using an Hitachi Touro external 4 TB HDD with my Win 7 x64 desktop. Unfortunately the USB3 connection keeps disconnecting intermittently so I decided to take the drive out of the enclosure and install it as an internal HDD inside the desktop.

On doing so I see that the drive needs to be initialised. Why is this the case when it has been working for years as an external drive? I presume that doing so would destroy the data on the drive.

Thanks

Alan

jumanji said:

Your external drive is most probably an advance formatted MBR drive with emulated sector size of 4096bytes/sector. These drives have a drive translation circuitry in the SATA to USB bridge inside the enclosure to write eight 512 bytes data into one 4096 bytes block, read the 4096 bytes block and reconvert it into 512bytes/block for the OS to read.

Advanced Format | TOSHIBA Storage & Electronic Devices Solutions Company | Asia-Pacific

Ah thanks for that. Yes it makes sense, now that I think of it, having to convert from SATA to USB.

jumanji said:

Put the drive back into its enclosure and the OS should be able to read it - provided you have not damaged the electronics in the enclosure during the break..

If you want to use it as an internal drive, you must first copy all data from that external drive to another drive. ( Plug it into an USB2 only port to avoid the USB3 intermittency). Once done, connect the HDD as an internal drive, initialise it as GPT, and format it.

Yes, that's what I'm doing, a long job with a high capacity drive like this which is why I had hoped originally to be able to omit this procedure! :-(

jumanji said:

Another method you can try when it is already connected as an internal drive is to use TestDisk to alter the geometry of the drive to 4096bytes sector size ( It will show sector size as normal 512B/sector.You will be asking TestDisk to consider it as 4096 bytes per sector and read it accordingly. This aector size change will be valid only for that TestDisk session) Copy all the data to another drive. When done initialise and format the drive as GPT.

I recommend the first method and only when it is not possible the TestDisk Method, which may need guidance.( Do not attempt to try it on your own. You may end up in disaster.)

I wasn't aware of this alternative method, useful to know about, but as you say, best go for the first option.Only 400GB left to copy over, LOL.

Many thanks for your response.

Alan

Glad to know you are on the right track :).

When done, you may mark this thread as solved, if you do not have any further queries.

Edit: Oh ! I already see the solved tick mark. I missed it .