Spinrite error, "This partition exceeds the size of this drive as defined by the system's BIOS or BIOS extension."

[Matia]

I'm new to the forum so please let me know if I should post this in another place. I also tried searching for this error message and Hybrid drives but it seems like Spinrite should work.

I have a Dell Latitude 5480 running at three year old st500lm021-1kj152 hard drive. I'm trying to run Spinrite because my disk usage over the last few months stay at 100% for longer than it should. However when I try to run Spinrite I get the error message, "This partition exceeds the size of this drive as defined by the system's BIOS or BIOS extension."

Please help.
(P.s. I don't remember when I first started listening to SN but I believe it has been six or more years. I love it when Steve get propeller head and talks about how things work.)

 

[PHolder]

That error occurs when the device has a GPT partition on it. Most drives partitioned since Windows 10 probably have a GPT partition because it is part and parcel with UEFI. SpinRite 6.1 will handle GPT whereas SpinRite 6 cannot. If you're daring and unwilling to wait, and if the drive is smaller than 2.2TB then you could backup the partition table, then blank it and run SpinRite 6, and finally restore it afterward. This is potentially very dangerous so do not attempt if you have the opportunity to wait for 6.1.