Trying to Salvage 4TB HDD

[jerryyyyy]

I was given a 4TB WD Red drive that when mounted shows and ongoing Bitlocker process (decrypting at 84%) on it. In the past I have been able to reformat bitlocker encrypted drives and reuse them. On this one I cannot seem to stop the process and if I try to reformat in diskpart or disk management it fails.

Any ideas on what to do try try to format? I was thinking of doing this in Linux but I do not have a Linux machine available.

 

[Tazz]

Any ideas on what to do try try to format? I was thinking of doing this in Linux but I do not have a Linux machine available.

I've used GParted (https://gparted.org/) in the past to get around odd Windows errors when trying to format a couple of hard drives. It boots to Linux.
Download the .iso and write it to USB or CD https://gparted.org/livecd.php

I found all I needed to know about how to use it from Google.

 

[jerryyyyy]

I've used GParted (https://gparted.org/) in the past to get around odd Windows errors when trying to format a couple of hard drives. It boots to Linux.
Download the .iso and write it to USB or CD https://gparted.org/livecd.php

I found all I needed to know about how to use it from Google.

Thanks very much. This is the software I was trying to recall. Believe is is the opensource version of a commercial product that went out of circulation. For the record will report back if it works.

 

[jerryyyyy]

Thanks. Worked like a charm. I an trying to use a Sabrent USB to SATA external docking station and despite the advertising it is very slow, but I am not in a hurry with a free backup drive. Supposed to be USB 3.0 etc and on a high end PC with SuperSpeed port... decided to replace it with one from Inatech.

Anyway, one I saw the interface I realized the original software was called I believe Partition Magic!

 

[PHolder]

Sounds like you solved your issue, but I just wanted to say that:

I do not have a Linux machine available

Shouldn't be an issue if you have a USB key. There are plenty of Live Linux distros you could use and just boot them without installing them and they shouldn't leave any signs on the base machine they were even there.

 

[jerryyyyy]

Thanks, I have gotten out of the Linux world a bit. Is there a particular distro you recommend? We run a Centos server and used to run a RedHat industrial strength one in my professional life. Was it Fedora that was the non-pro version of RedHat? Used to run that on a few machines and recall was very user friendly. Happy to have fixed that drive.

 

[PHolder]

particular distro you recommend?

Well from a friendliness and familiarity to Windows users, maybe Zorin OS? Here's a video showing how to make a USB and boot it (at the start of the video) Explaining Computers YT Link