GPT Not mounting using "normal" GPT mounting techniques 12.04

Question

I've got two 2TB drivess: one MBR and the other GPT.

sudo blckid /dev/sdb1

returns a blank.

gdisk shows:

Partition table scan:
MBR: protective
BSD: not present
APM: not present
GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Warning! Secondary partition table overlaps the last partition by 1970 blocks!
You will need to delete this partition or resize it in another utility.

Disk /dev/sdb: 3907027055 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Logical sector size: 512 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 38A1113D-B5E9-4B69-ABFF-ACB27AFB3DDD
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907027021
Partitions will be aligned on 8-sector boundaries

Total free space is 2014 sectors (1007.0 KiB)
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size       Code Name
  1              34       262177   128.0 MiB  0C01 Microsoft reserved part
  2          264192   3907028991   1.8 TiB    0700 Basic data partition

mounting via fstab or -t gives same error when using NTFS or NTFS-3g "NTFS signature is missing"

GParted says one partition is overwriting another, yet windows shows no errors at all. The drive is also mounted easily via MacOs (triple boot)

Answer 1

Your partition table is corrupt. Note the following:

First usable sector is 34, last usable sector is 3907027021
Number Start (sector) End (sector) Size       Code Name
  2          264192   3907028991   1.8 TiB    0700 Basic data partition

The end sector of partition #2 is after the last usable sector on the disk. This is illegal.

Note, however, that this says nothing about the filesystem on that partition. It's possible that the filesystem is smaller by a wide enough margin to make it fit entirely on the disk. If so, deleting the partition in gdisk and re-creating it with a smaller size may fix things. You'll need to figure out the precise size of the filesystem, though. Perhaps one of the Linux NTFS utilities can provide this information, but offhand I'm not sure precisely how to do this.

Also note that it's partition #2 (/dev/sdb2) that contains the filesystem, not /dev/sdb1 or /dev/sdb. If you've been using either of the latter two identifiers in Linux, that could explain the error messages you've been getting. If you try /dev/sdb2 and it starts working, though, don't ignore the partition table problem; it's likely to come back and bite you!