HDD compatibility?

[Guest]

Honestly...I posted a question a week ago about my 160 GB HDD not working
without the DDO and everywhere I've posted (from here to Western Digital to
norton ghost/partition magic and various tech forums) no one seems to get
this.

using
200 GB - Master, OS Win XP SP2 (western digital)
250 gb - Slave, files, OS backup clone (western digital)
80 gb - portable storage (Maxtor)
160 gb (capped at 80 GB) (western digital)

- no one seems to get that the 200 GB HDD I'm using works fine, not to
mention that I just installed another 250 GB drive out of frustration from
the 160 being utterly useless to me.

The 160 GB is capped at 80 GB for some reason (with an older BIOS the limit
is capped at 137GB ...but I keep being told to buy a new motherboard or
update the BIOS etc.)

There is some issue with the 160 GB drive not my 'computer', If anyone might
know why it is limited to half its size and I'm willing to hear any theory
but please but no more posts about my 'old motherboard' 'outdated drivers'
etc. If anything its an incompatible HDD.

Thanks .

 

[philo]

Honestly...I posted a question a week ago about my 160 GB HDD not working
without the DDO and everywhere I've posted (from here to Western Digital to
norton ghost/partition magic and various tech forums) no one seems to get
this.

using
200 GB - Master, OS Win XP SP2 (western digital)
250 gb - Slave, files, OS backup clone (western digital)
80 gb - portable storage (Maxtor)
160 gb (capped at 80 GB) (western digital)

<snip>

Sound like you have the bios limitation jumper in place...
recheck your jumper settings on the HD

 

[stoneyes]

I would check my BIOS settings on my computer to make sure it said auto
vice some head and cylinder setting (you know what I mean) but other
than that..."that be a real good one"
Jer

 

[Richard Urban]

And have you ever used an "honest to God" partitioning program, such as
Partition Magic 8.01 or later, to look at the drive and see what is really
there? Why not? It will show partitions, free space, unallocated space etc.

Try it. You may finally find out about your drive.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Thank you for all your replies...This one really is a challenge.

And have you ever used an "honest to God" partitioning program, such as
Partition Magic 8.01

I use Partition Magic 8.0 (PM) which saw only 80 GB's, an inherited oldy
from my father (I assume "H.T.G." means 'store bought'?). Are the later
Symmantec versions even more magical than the Powerquest one?

I would check my BIOS settings on my computer to make sure it said auto
vice some head and cylinder setting (you know what I mean)

Yeah I do, I tried every possible jumper setting possible (and IDE
positions, installed XP SP2 on it then ran PM on it, uhh.. and manually set
BIOS configs) . Even Western Digital Tools 11 (WDT) (DOS) will only format 80
gigs without the DDO overlay.

I was told to use Fdisc but have lost my DOS tongue years ago - not to
mention I didn't belive fdisk could accomplish any more than PM or WDT could.

This one is a weird one. When I get some time I'm going to bring the HDD to
a shop and have their opinion, if it is a HDD fault then I'll make a scene at
Future Shop until I get my money back.
(...no wonder why it was on sale...crap flinging jerks)

Well thanks again for all your replies, I'll post back when I hear from the
comp shop.

 

[Chuck]

80 gb - portable storage (Maxtor) Master?
I might suspect that the removable drive in the master position, and the WD
drive in the slave might have something to do with what is going on. The
next possibility is that the WD and the Maxtor have some sort of
interaction. (Happened to me!)

I'd pull the removable drive, move the WD to the Master position, and see if
your utilities can access it and do the necessary things to get it back to
it's real configuration. Once that's successful, I'd reconnect the
Removable (with any needed jumper settings) and see what happens.

 

[Bob Willard]

<snip>

Sound like you have the bios limitation jumper in place...
recheck your jumper settings on the HD

Probably not. I don't recall any HDs that had an 80GB limit set by
jumper; lots of other size limits, but not 80GB.

 

[Bob Willard]

And have you ever used an "honest to God" partitioning program, such as
Partition Magic 8.01 or later, to look at the drive and see what is really
there? Why not? It will show partitions, free space, unallocated space etc.

Try it. You may finally find out about your drive.

That would work, but you need not pay for PM just for this. Most of the versions
of FDISK would do the same for free, if you have an old copy of W9x or some
of the later copies of DOS.

 

[Bob Willard]

Honestly...I posted a question a week ago about my 160 GB HDD not working
without the DDO and everywhere I've posted (from here to Western Digital to
norton ghost/partition magic and various tech forums) no one seems to get
this.

using
200 GB - Master, OS Win XP SP2 (western digital)
250 gb - Slave, files, OS backup clone (western digital)
80 gb - portable storage (Maxtor)
160 gb (capped at 80 GB) (western digital)

- no one seems to get that the 200 GB HDD I'm using works fine, not to
mention that I just installed another 250 GB drive out of frustration from
the 160 being utterly useless to me.

The 160 GB is capped at 80 GB for some reason (with an older BIOS the limit
is capped at 137GB ...but I keep being told to buy a new motherboard or
update the BIOS etc.)

There is some issue with the 160 GB drive not my 'computer', If anyone might
know why it is limited to half its size and I'm willing to hear any theory
but please but no more posts about my 'old motherboard' 'outdated drivers'
etc. If anything its an incompatible HDD.

Thanks .

One more thing to try: DL the WD tools and see if you can write 0s to the
entire HD to get rid of the (suspected) DDO garbage. If that works, then you
can part it and format it normally.

 

[Randella]

The thing that strikes me the most about this post is the amount of
hard drives you have installed on your system. That and none of them
are close to the same size at all.

I am assuming that they are all EIDE.

If that is the case, which ones do you have set as dynamic and which
ones are individual disks? Do you have one or more partioned into 2
drives? Is there some sort of RAID configuration in place?

If it is not a partioning scheme mistake, then I am willing to bet this
is a controller issue. It looks like your secondary controller might
only support 80GB. BIOS/Configuration settings can be a killer...

Since your unwilling to look at your BIOS/Disk Controller. I suggest
you move everything to an external drive and Zero-Fill all your drives
with a Gutman's format and reinstall your OS after Gutman's finishes
with your drives... It's good to blast everything away and start clean
and fresh sometimes...

-Randy

 

[Yves Leclerc]

Probably not. I don't recall any HDs that had an 80GB limit set by
jumper; lots of other size limits, but not 80GB.

You are right! There never was a cap for 80GB. Most hard drivers had a
jumper to cap at 32GB (the same size as Microsoft XP FAT32 creation cap) and
most OLDER BIOS had the 8GB cap.

One possible solution is to get a ATA133 PCI add-on card and to move you hard
drives onto this card. This card provides its own BIOS controls and does not
use an DDO software drivers.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for your interest Randella.

The thing that strikes me the most about this post is the amount of
hard drives you have installed on your system.

Yeah, Ive collected a few but not all are hooked up. What I wanted was the
160 and the 200 GB's together (and the 80 as the USB drive) and since the 160
is giving me flack I decided to go with the 250, and your'e right, all IDE.
Each HDD had its purpose (one was just for music and movies, one for backup
a partition for storing large application temp files (adobe audition etc.)
etc.)

With one OS originating from the 80 GB, I cloned it to the 160 (this damaged
my 80 GB HDD OS), installed a fresh Win XP OS over it to see if the win PE
formatting would help (no)...

...Ok, this could take forever to explain, lets just say I know enough about
jumpers and BIOS settings and IDE positions to get by on...On the 160 GB HDD
Ive tried:
-cloning OS to it
-installing new XP SP2 (SP2)
-every IDE position (master/slave/cable select, 0/1/USB - w/ USB all jumper
settings)
-with or w/out partitioning on disk
-with or w/out second HDD on IDE cable (master slave) w/ or w/out partitions
-...and many many more trials all for the low low price of a depraved social
life...
with removing the DDO with XP SP2 (xp2) on the drive, it showed 160 GB ("149
GB") but also shows about 60 GB as 'used space' .

Since your unwilling to look at your BIOS/Disk Controller. I suggest
you move everything to an external drive and Zero-Fill all your drives
with a Gutman's format and reinstall your OS after Gutman's finishes
with your drives... It's good to blast everything away and start clean
and fresh sometimes...

I never said "unwilling to look at BIOS/Disk Controller" in fact I belive I
said I did configure the BIOS. Ive been referred from my mobo manufacturer to
update my BIOS/chipset (the 'update' file they sent me was the version my
mobo was shipped with...and one level down from my current version, I love AI
robo-support - my mobo is Gigabyte GA-8lTXE).

About Gutmans...why would I gut my system to "try" to get one HDD to work
and maybe fail? Good suggestion in another cause but I'd be better off trying
to get my money back from the retailer since all the other HDD's work fine.
Like I said a few times over, I think its a HDD hardware issue (ie: failed or
incompatible HDD).

I thank you all for your suggestions but I was really just wondering if
anyone knew why only 80 GB's would be shown (other than a 'hidden partition',
like what if a hidden partition was on a disc (as a folder not a 'windows
drive') and was erased, would that hidden sector be lost?). Thanks again all.
take care.

thanks for your support Randella.

 

[Guest]

Thanks chuck but you got it all wrong...

original message

200 GB - MASTER, OS Win XP SP2 (western digital)
250 gb - SLAVE, files, OS backup clone (western digital)
80 gb - portable storage (Maxtor)
160 gb (capped at 80 GB) (western digital)

the 160 is out of commission for now, until I get the 160 figured out it is
easier this way. I have the 80 loaded in my USB bay. Believe me, I tried to
format this drive quote "everyway but using FDisk" , that and setting it on
fire.

 

[Anna]

Thanks chuck but you got it all wrong...

200 GB - MASTER, OS Win XP SP2 (western digital)
250 gb - SLAVE, files, OS backup clone (western digital)
80 gb - portable storage (Maxtor)
160 gb (capped at 80 GB) (western digital)

the 160 is out of commission for now, until I get the 160 figured out it
is
easier this way. I have the 80 loaded in my USB bay. Believe me, I tried
to
format this drive quote "everyway but using FDisk" , that and setting it
on
fire.

Brandon Dub:
Well, since this problem has been going on for some time and you've tried
this or that without any success, why don't you simply install the problem
HD as a secondary internal HD in your machine and partition/format it using
FDISK? Assuming that works you can later convert the file system to NTFS is
you so desire.

Naturally I'm assuming in all this that all the data on that drive is
expendable. If not...
Anna

 

[Randella]

Brandon,

What I was getting at was a quality hard drive cleaning on ALL your
devices... Gutman's is a zero-fill formating standard, not a "gutting"
utility. It will make sure that you completely destroy
ghost/reminate/previous restrictions/last format/ and any other markers
your drives may have on them. It is the most complete of all
formatting standards.

The reason I say ALL of your drives is that your current
software/hardware set-up may be restricting your access to part of the
drive, known as hidden. Creating a soft/hard lock that is unlockable
by hardware means or software means alone.

Good luck with the rest of it.

-Randy
MS-MVP Windows user

 

[Guest]

What I was getting at was a quality hard drive cleaning on ALL your

devices... Gutman's is a zero-fill formating standard, not a "gutting"
utility.

Sorry, sounded the same to me. Hard to believe ALL my drives are oppressing
my 160 GB...like they're prejudice or something.

Gutman or Gutmann? I have never heard of Gutman's formatting before, I
believe you are referring to Peter Gutmann -security research, cryptographer
and genral computer science nut?

Peter Gutmann - Professional Paranoid
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/

"Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" byPeter Gutmann
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/secure_del.html

I've heard of the man but not his method. How would I go about this? (the
crypto magnetic release data is too technical for me ( plus I work 10 - 15
hours days, no time to read it all, please point me to an APP.)

thank you randella.

 

[Randella]

Download this utility:

http://dban.sourceforge.net/

I use the floppy version and hit the root of the drive with a Gutman's
or Gutmann's standard. Come back in a week, and it should just be
finishing.

-Randy

 

[Guest]

Thanks Randella, I'll give it a go...when I go to the cottage.

 

[Guest]

I'm just not very familiar with Fdisk and I lost my DOS tongue a while
ago...do I need the MS DOS shell to use it? Does Fdisk let me play frogger
while I wait? Do I need to know Qbasic?

Sorry..I feel like playing tonight. Can I use FDisk with XP2 or do I need to
download some lost ark to use it? Do you know of a good, simple FDISK
resource (like Fdisk for dummies?)

Thank you Anna (Lisowsk...?).

 

[Anna]

I'm just not very familiar with Fdisk and I lost my DOS tongue a while
ago...do I need the MS DOS shell to use it? Does Fdisk let me play frogger
while I wait? Do I need to know Qbasic?

Sorry..I feel like playing tonight. Can I use FDisk with XP2 or do I need
to
download some lost ark to use it? Do you know of a good, simple FDISK
resource (like Fdisk for dummies?)

Thank you Anna (Lisowsk...?).

First of all, let me make it clear that I'm really uncertain as to whether
using FDISK and the FORMAT commands on a DOS boot floppy disk (Windows
98/Me startup floppy disk) will solve your problem. But it's probably worth
a try at this point. We have experienced at least two or three instances
where we were unable to partition/format an apparently non-defective HD
during the XP install process and in desperation used the DOS FDISK/FORMAT
commands to eventually partition/format the drive (later converting the file
system from FAT32 to NTFS).

Using these commands is not a particularly difficult-to-understand nor
difficult-to-undertake process. You do not need an understanding of QBasic
or any other programming language. Do a Google search and you'll be pointed
to a number of sites that have step-by-step instructions for using these
commands.
Anna