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Go to SolutionGPT Protective Partition
Hi,
Dell XPS-8960, 32GB RAM, NVidia GeForce RTX 4070 Super graphics card.
All Windows and Dell updates applied.
I was copying files between two identical Seagate Barracuda 4TB hard drives D and F.
During the operation, "Access Denied" window pops up and everything locks up.
Having to resort to Task Manager to close the pc down.
Restarting the pc, it would not get past the Dell Logo and the circling "half-moon"
To make a long story short, removing D drive and it starts up.
Placing the drive in a Sabrent docking station, I can access the drive and with DiskPart I do a "clean".
Conneting the drive back in my pc, I format and initializing but it still shows "protected".
I had the impression that formatting would clear that.
The drive has passed SeaTools test, so I am at a loss and appreciate any comments,
Thanks for your time,
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Posted November 1st, 2026 12:50
Are you running as an Administrator?
It sounds more like a Permission problem accessing the drive? Without trying to write to it, can you do a DIR F: and does that work or do you get the same error? What IS the exact error?
This link might help you, https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/4027265/d-drive-is-showing-but-access-denied .
8
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Posted November 1st, 2026 12:59
@ispalten Thanks for your reply,
No access to the drive while it is connected to the pc.
When using a usb-docking station, I can access the drive as normal.
Disk Management then shows the GPT Protected Partition.
And no, I can't write to it, nor get a Dir D:.
As mentioned, I did a DiskPart and "clean".
Thanks again
9
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Posted November 1st, 2026 13:00
And Yes, I am running the pc as Administrator.
Never had a problem or seen the GPT-issue before.
3
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Posted November 1st, 2026 15:45
I suspect it is a PERMISSIONS problem, that is the other drive was done by the 'True Administrator'.
That is the SYSTEM LEVEL Administrator.
You can become the True one.
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To enable the hidden, built-in Administrator account on Windows 11, use one of the following primary method:Using Command Prompt Press Windows Key + X and select Terminal (Admin) or Command Prompt (Admin), then click Yes to allow changes.Type the following command and press Enter: Cmdnet user Administrator /active:yesUse code with caution.A message stating "The command completed successfully" will appear. The account is now active and will show on your sign-in screen.===================To go back to what you were, use the same command but instead of 'yes' use 'no'.Now test if you can see the drive? You should be able to.If you do, DELETE the PARTITION using DISKMGMT.MSC (Disk Manager).Then issue command with 'no' to put you back to normal, and then rebuild that drives partitions and anything else you want on it.I think this will work, but it might not, but it is what I'd try. Not much to lose as you can't access the drive anyway?6
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Posted November 3rd, 2026 03:15
Thank you all, for taken the time to help with this issue.
I have done a fair bit of investigation and seems if the partition is corrupt, it wll throw up a "Protective Partition" with little or no chance of recover data - unless seeking professional and probably expensive solutions.
I frequently do backup, so lost only a minimal amount of data which I could reconstruct.
Thank you again for all replies and help.
anne_droid
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5
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Posted November 2nd, 2026 13:10
Hi
I have some (daft) ideas.....
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Worst case use the SeaTools and Low-Level format, that takes hours will clear any blockage.
SeaTools provides a low-level format option called "Zero Fill," which writes zeros to every sector of the hard drive, effectively erasing all data. This process can be performed using SeaTools for DOS or SeaTools Enterprise Edition.
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Maybe using Paragon Partition Manager CE 18 or Gparted you can examine the flags against the particular partition. Reset accordingly?
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D: could be misread by Windows as a DVD drive, and either tries to boot from it or makes it read-only or BOTH.
Kind Regards
anne_droid