Hard drive size incorrectly reported

I have a Hitachi deskstar and ran into a problem where the drive got very corrupted. I popped in the Hitachi utility disk that came with it and accidentally set the size of the drive to 33.8GB by changing the maximum LBA somehow. When I tried to set it back to the maximum LBA it would not let me do so.

I ended up doing a full format to the drive of writing all zeros to it overnight. I thought this would erase anything and everything on the drive, but apparently, it still thinks the drive's size is 33.8 GB.

It is a truly a 160GB hard drive that I have used with this motherboard and BIOS versions without any problem. Right now I have a 10GB and 23.8 GB partition until I can figure out how to fix this.

Appreciate any help anyone can give me on this, I'm stumped.

 

Have your tried to let the BIOS 'Auto Detect' the drive?

 

LBA generally refers to a motherboard BIOS setting. Like markp62 says, do an "autodetection" or you may need to set that drive to "auto" in the drive configuration section. I don't think that a utility would "set" the LBA.

Have a look at the installation directions here:
http://www.hitachigst.com/portal/si...i_baseMenuID=22f0deefa8f3967dafa0466460e4f0a0

Matt

 

Have the same problem with a Hitachi/IBM Deskstar , runing Win XP Pro SP1, it used to detect it as 19.66 GB, but now it shows as 1.91 GB, label on HD says 20.58 GB, ran the drive fitness tool from IBM/Hitachi and it is being recognized as 20.58 GB, however the bios detects only 2.1 GB. I tried every thing I can think of (set as Master, Slave, Cable Select, alone, with another HD, etc.) always with the same result. I even had the drive fitness tool erase the disk and MBR and rewrite zeroes on all sectors, however the bios still sees the HD as only 2.1 GB. It all started one day when I booted my computer and tried to access my docs folder (I had moved the my docs folder from all users to this drive), and got an error message with something like "Unrecognized drive, the drive may need to be partitioned "
I had lots of MP3's and backup of my system on that drive in case of emergency!. All tests done with the drive fitness tool are successful, S.M.A.R.T. status report is Good. I just don't know what else to do. Also Fdisk only sees my disk as 2016 MB. I heard that sometimes the power supply is unable to supply enough power to all the devices and that can cause problems.
Am I doing something I'm not suppossed to?

System is:

Windows XP Pro SP1
Intel MOBO 845PESV
P4 2.4 Ghz 533 Mhz bus
512MB DDR 533 Mhz
Master HD 40.0 GB
Slave HD 20.58 GB Shows as 1.91GB
CDRW Master
DVD Rom Slave
Antec PS 350W ATX 12V SmartPower

 

There is a jumper to limit newer HDD to 32 GB, make sure this jumper is not
set. Sometimes the "extra" jumper is put in the wrong location.

Best

 

I fixed this problem on my PC, ironically by using the Maxtor install disk that came with my other hard drive. It installed a "new" DDO layer and now reports the correct size.

I'm going to try removing the DDO layer I installed with the Maxtor disk and see if everything goes back to normal.

 

rgarcia, (BTW, welcome to the BBS). If the utilities see the drive as it should be, then the problem will be how the BIOS sees it. Go into the BIOS settings and locate the configuration settings for the drives. You may have to change from "auto" to "user" and input the drive's properties manually (there is some information about it in the Hitachi setup guides, the full versions).

See if there is a firmware update for that model. There should be a download that will check the drive and tell you if an update is required.

You could try using a DDO (Dynamic Drive Overlay) like Chris H, they work alright as long as there is no change to the Master Boot Record (MBR) of the drive including any changes to the drive configuration...if there is then you can have quite a lot of problems. I would avoid installing one if you can or be prepared to reinstall it if you come across unexpected drive problems.

Chris H, your BIOS may have a drive size limitation, yours may be at 128gb.
(there were limitations at 2, 8, 32, 64 and 128gb as drives got larger and the motherboard BIOS had to cope with them). If you have a DDO on your Maxtor, that may be why you will also need to have one on the Hitachi. If at some stage you want to try to run without DDOs then try smaller partitions or see if your motherboard website has a BIOS upgrade for your model.

Another possibility, a controller card.

In fact, if your Maxtor has a DDO I would not doubt that it corrupted the MBR of the Hiatchi (they need to change the information on other drives so that they can be "seen ").

Try not to run DDOs if you can help it.

Matt

 

Hi, the bios does not see the real size of the hard drive, it shows up as 2.1 GB instead of 20.5 GB, and the problem is that I don't have a lot of options at the BIOS, is either AUTO or USER, but the user option does not let me input Cyl, Heads, etc. it only lets me enable or disable S.M.A.R.T. detection.
I checked the Intel website and I have the latest BIOS installed. Don't know if it was a virus or what but is the same BIOS that used to see the real size.
Where can I get the firmware update, how do I install it?. Jumpers are set correctly on the HD.

Thanks.

Windows XP Pro SP1
Intel 845PESV Motherboard
P4 2.4 Ghz 533 Mhz bus
512MB DDR 533 Mhz
Master HD 40.0 GB
Slave HD 20.58 GB Shows as 1.91GB
CDRW Master
DVD Rom Slave
Antec PS 350W ATX 12V SmartPower

 

Chris H, thanks for posting back what worked for you.

rgarcia900, would you start a new thread for your problem?