Hiding Hard Drives

[Nicole Massey]

Do you have any means to test, other than Windows ?

Your options would include:

1) BIOS detection via popup boot menu.

USB drives will appear in a popup boot menu (F8, or F11 key) but
the drives may not be detected in the regular BIOS screen. Some BIOS
have a USB specific screen, where drive devices do get listed. But
on my systems here, I'm not really that used to seeing USB devices
while in the BIOS.

The popup boot menu, is where I detect my USB enclosure
(holding either a hard drive or an optical drive, depending
on what I'm doing - I'm too cheap to own multiple enclosures).

2) Detection from a Linux LiveCD.

Some of the recent Linux LiveCDs are of less value for
forensics, due to their tablet like interfaces. So it's hard
to recommend a particular 700MB download, that won't be a pain
to use.

You could try a GParted CD I suppose. There is the program itself,
but there is also a LiveCD version. With the LiveCD version, it
boots Linux and then runs GParted on the screen for you. The pull down
menu should list the disks, and each disk will show partitions. The
sole purpose in this case, is to be able to "detect" a disk, using
something other than Windows. Making changes in there, isn't a
particular objective at this time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gparted

Maybe that's focused enough, to be a worthwhile alternative.
This one is 127MB, so no copies of LibreOffice on it Takes
about seven minutes on my slow broadband connection.

http://gparted.sourceforge.net/download.php

"GParted live is based on Debian live, and the default account
is "user", with password "live". There is no root password,
so if you need root privileges, login as "user", then run "sudo"
to get root privileges."

I test Linux LiveCDs in a virtual machine, and that 127MB one
has a couple problems (problems you wouldn't see on a real machine).
I got around the Xorg window system segfaulting, by using the
forcevideo
mode, vesa driver, 1024x768 at 16 bit video mode, and then I could see
the screen. But the paravirtualization support built into Linux,
prevents any hard drives from being seen! What a stupid "innovation".
That spells the end of new releases of Linux in VMs. My virtual
environment
is based on VPC2007, but Linux declares it has detected "Hyper-V" which
is
not true.

An alternative, is Knoppix, with the Adrienne speech output version.
Then run "lshw" or "gparted" from there, to get some info on disks.


http://mirrors.kernel.org/knoppix/knoppix-cd/ADRIANE_KNOPPIX_V7.0.4CD-2012-08-20-EN.iso

Download won't be finished for a bit, so I'll post back later
as to whether that's a workable option. I expect the same hassles,
but Klaus Knopper is a pretty competent distro builder, and perhaps
he won't "copy and paste" every mistake the Linux community makes :-(

I wish I had a simple "hardware inventory disc", but don't know
of any off hand. There are likely commercial versions, but I'd
be looking for a freebie.

For me to use a Linux variant I'd need it to run Orca right off the bat so I
can benefit from the information, as none of my Windows based screen reading
options will work under Linux.
Checking the BIOS is also a problem, as BIOS runs before any drivers or
applications run, meaning no functional screen reader.
I can see the drive, with files in R-STudio, so I know it's there and the
files are there. Moving it to another USB drive box means it's a problem
with either the drive (unlikely) or the way the machine is seeing the drive,
not any box issues. Other drives work on this box, and work well.
I did find out that the jumper was set to something weird instead of to
Master, so I had that changed, but it didn't improve anything -- Disk
Management still won't see the drive. I deleted the drive in Device Manager
and had it search for hardware updates, and it found the drive, but it still
doesn't show up in Disk Management. So I'm rather mystified.

 

[Nicole Massey]

In accomplished something. It suggests that your drive is bad.
Putting another drive in the same box would add to that.

YesKnown functional drive in the big drive box does come up. So it seems
this is getting reduced down to the drive itself as the problem. The data is
still there, though, so I'm wondering what's gone bad about it.

 

[Nicole Massey]

Maybe the hard drive jumper was changed or removed?

Nope -- see other reply in this thread -- the jumper was in the wrong
setting, but now it's where it should be, so that isn't it either.
I don't know if I have any machines I can get into that have IDE ports
anymore. (The "get into part is the issue)

 

[John Doe]

It must be the hard drive. Apparently something in your drive
failed between your last installation and your new installation.
Plugging the drive into your computer outside of the box would
pretty much eliminate anything else except a jumper issue. I've
never heard of such a problem, it must be the drive. Windows does
not just fail a specific drive depending on the installation
progress. That doesn't happen.

 

[Paul]

For me to use a Linux variant I'd need it to run Orca right off the bat so I
can benefit from the information, as none of my Windows based screen reading
options will work under Linux.
Checking the BIOS is also a problem, as BIOS runs before any drivers or
applications run, meaning no functional screen reader.
I can see the drive, with files in R-STudio, so I know it's there and the
files are there. Moving it to another USB drive box means it's a problem
with either the drive (unlikely) or the way the machine is seeing the drive,
not any box issues. Other drives work on this box, and work well.
I did find out that the jumper was set to something weird instead of to
Master, so I had that changed, but it didn't improve anything -- Disk
Management still won't see the drive. I deleted the drive in Device Manager
and had it search for hardware updates, and it found the drive, but it still
doesn't show up in Disk Management. So I'm rather mystified.

OK, download this utility. It runs from the Command Prompt (MSDOS window).

http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.5.zip

Once you have that file unzipped, there'll be "dd.exe".
That is a port of Disk Dump, a utility for transferring sectors from
disk to disk.

It has a listing option. That's all we're trying to do here, is
list all available disks.

Try in Command Prompt (after using cd to navigate to the dd folder):

dd --list

and it will list the disks.

If you want to store the output from that program in a text file, try:

dd --list 2> mylist.txt

Then you can open "mylist.txt" in Notepad.

The material between the two sets of asterisks, is the output
on my computer. It has two disk drives, four partitions each.
At this point, we'd be happy if Harddisk0, Harddisk1, ...
were to show up, for all the disks including the USB ones.

*******
NT Block Device Objects
\\?\Device\Floppy0

\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 <--- Disk0 in Disk Management
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DR0
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 500107862016 bytes

\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1 \
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1 \
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition2 \
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume2 \
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition3 \___ 4 partitions total
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume3 /
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512 /
size is 19197771264 bytes /
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition4 /
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume4 /


\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition0 <--- Disk 1 in Disk Management
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DR1
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 500107862016 bytes

\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition1 \
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume5 \
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition2 \
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume6 \
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition3 \___ this disk has 4 partitions
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume7 / as well
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition4 /
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume8 /

*******

HTH,
Paul

 

[Nicole Massey]

OK, download this utility. It runs from the Command Prompt (MSDOS window).

http://www.chrysocome.net/downloads/dd-0.5.zip

Once you have that file unzipped, there'll be "dd.exe".
That is a port of Disk Dump, a utility for transferring sectors from
disk to disk.

It has a listing option. That's all we're trying to do here, is
list all available disks.

Try in Command Prompt (after using cd to navigate to the dd folder):

dd --list

and it will list the disks.

If you want to store the output from that program in a text file, try:

dd --list 2> mylist.txt

Then you can open "mylist.txt" in Notepad.

The material between the two sets of asterisks, is the output
on my computer. It has two disk drives, four partitions each.
At this point, we'd be happy if Harddisk0, Harddisk1, ...
were to show up, for all the disks including the USB ones.

Okay, downloaded, but not unzipped yet. Before I do, I'm thinking about a
batch file. (I have a background as a LAN administrator, Desktop Support
tech, and Helpdesk manager, so I prefer batch files instead of trying to
navigate in DOS, especially since the screen reader is erratic at the
command prompt)

CD C:\import\dd\dd.exe > c:\import\dd\disks.txt
end

I think this will do what I want it to. Anyone see a potential problem with
it?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

It must be the hard drive. Apparently something in your drive
failed between your last installation and your new installation.
Plugging the drive into your computer outside of the box would
pretty much eliminate anything else except a jumper issue. I've
never heard of such a problem, it must be the drive. Windows does
not just fail a specific drive depending on the installation
progress. That doesn't happen.

I have once seen a Windows installation that wouldn't recognize *ANY*
new drive but it had no problem with drives it already knew. I nuke
and paved it.

 

[Paul]

Okay, downloaded, but not unzipped yet. Before I do, I'm thinking about a
batch file. (I have a background as a LAN administrator, Desktop Support
tech, and Helpdesk manager, so I prefer batch files instead of trying to
navigate in DOS, especially since the screen reader is erratic at the
command prompt)

CD C:\import\dd\dd.exe > c:\import\dd\disks.txt
end

I think this will do what I want it to. Anyone see a potential problem with
it?

I tried this in a file "some.bat"

cd c:\downloads\dd-0.5
dd --list 2> mynewlist.txt

and it did seem to work. I could double-click that from C:\downloads
(i.e. it was located above the dd-0.5 directory), and the output
ended up in the dd-0.5 directory.

Paul

 

[Nicole Massey]

Here's what I got as output from the program Paul suggested:
***
rawwrite dd for windows version 0.5.
Written by John Newbigin <[email protected]>
This program is covered by the GPL. See copying.txt for details
Win32 Available Volume Information
\\.\Volume{4b4bf3c1-79c2-11e0-bbbc-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)0-0+2
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\h:

\\.\Volume{2e0ae454-79b3-11e0-b631-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1
fixed media
Mounted on \\.\c:

\\.\Volume{4b4bf3c4-79c2-11e0-bbbc-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\CdRom0
CD-ROM
Mounted on \\.\e:

\\.\Volume{4b4bf3c3-79c2-11e0-bbbc-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\Floppy0
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\a:

\\.\Volume{7fad5504-fd2b-11e1-bc55-001d7dcf5205}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume15
fixed media
Mounted on \\.\i:


NT Block Device Objects
\\?\Device\CdRom0
size is 391137280 bytes
\\?\Device\Floppy0
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DR0
Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 512
size is 100663296 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)0-0+2
Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 512
size is 100646912 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition0
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DR1
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 320071851520 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition1
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk2\DR68
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 250058268160 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition1
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume15
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 250056705024 bytes

Virtual input devices
/dev/zero (null data)
/dev/random (pseudo-random data)
- (standard input)

Virtual output devices
- (standard output)
***

I know about A, C, E, H, and I already. Anything else is a mystery.

 

[Paul]

Here's what I got as output from the program Paul suggested:
***
rawwrite dd for windows version 0.5.
Written by John Newbigin <[email protected]>
This program is covered by the GPL. See copying.txt for details
Win32 Available Volume Information
\\.\Volume{4b4bf3c1-79c2-11e0-bbbc-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)0-0+2
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\h:

\\.\Volume{2e0ae454-79b3-11e0-b631-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1
fixed media
Mounted on \\.\c:

\\.\Volume{4b4bf3c4-79c2-11e0-bbbc-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\CdRom0
CD-ROM
Mounted on \\.\e:

\\.\Volume{4b4bf3c3-79c2-11e0-bbbc-806d6172696f}\
link to \\?\Device\Floppy0
removeable media
Mounted on \\.\a:

\\.\Volume{7fad5504-fd2b-11e1-bc55-001d7dcf5205}\
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume15
fixed media
Mounted on \\.\i:


NT Block Device Objects
\\?\Device\CdRom0
size is 391137280 bytes
\\?\Device\Floppy0
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DR0
Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 512
size is 100663296 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition1
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk0\DP(1)0-0+2
Removable media other than floppy. Block size = 512
size is 100646912 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition0
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk1\DR1
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 320071851520 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk1\Partition1
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume1
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition0
link to \\?\Device\Harddisk2\DR68
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 250058268160 bytes
\\?\Device\Harddisk2\Partition1
link to \\?\Device\HarddiskVolume15
Fixed hard disk media. Block size = 512
size is 250056705024 bytes

Virtual input devices
/dev/zero (null data)
/dev/random (pseudo-random data)
- (standard input)

Virtual output devices
- (standard output)
***

I know about A, C, E, H, and I already. Anything else is a mystery.

Harddisk0 has one partition. 100,646,912 bytes ? <--- Tiny capacity ???
Harddisk1 is 320GB and has one partition.
Harddisk2 is 250GB and has one partition.

The reference to HarddiskVolume1 and HarddiskVolume15
is suspicious, as it implies a bunch of missing ones.

In the results for my two disks, there are sequential volume labels
from HarddiskVolume1, HarddiskVolume2, ... HarddiskVolume8.
I don't have any "holes" in my list. And one of those would be
a Linux volume (not mountable). And it still got listed as
HarddiskVolume3.

I'm still looking around for some way to get info
on the "missing" ones. Tools like "mountvol", I
don't think it's going to do any better of a
job than Disk Management.

There is also the diskpart tool, which is interactive,
and you type commands into a command interpreter, and
it tells you stuff. But it's really nothing more
than Disk Management in disguise.

The only way diskpart would help, is it is a text tool.
You run it from command prompt. Unlike Disk Management
which has the GUI. I don't know if your screen reader
might be missing some info from Disk Management, which
could be seen in Diskpart, or not.

In Regedit, you could look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices,
and there are entries in there like \DosDevices\C: . Presumably,
these keys contain some information about assignments. And since
I have a disk disconnected right now, I'm willing to bet some
of the letters in there, are for that disconnected disk. I
see 18 drive letters listed in there, and I'm using 7 right now
(one partition is Linux EXT2). Again, I don't think looking
there, is going to help you figure out what's going on
with your other "harddiskvolumes".

So the "HarddiskVolume1 and HarddiskVolume15" thing is suspicious,
but I don't know how to gain leverage using that info.

Still puzzled,
Paul

 

[Nicole Massey]

Harddisk0 has one partition. 100,646,912 bytes ? <--- Tiny capacity ???
Harddisk1 is 320GB and has one partition.
Harddisk2 is 250GB and has one partition.

The reference to HarddiskVolume1 and HarddiskVolume15
is suspicious, as it implies a bunch of missing ones.

In the results for my two disks, there are sequential volume labels
from HarddiskVolume1, HarddiskVolume2, ... HarddiskVolume8.
I don't have any "holes" in my list. And one of those would be
a Linux volume (not mountable). And it still got listed as
HarddiskVolume3.

I'm still looking around for some way to get info
on the "missing" ones. Tools like "mountvol", I
don't think it's going to do any better of a
job than Disk Management.

There is also the diskpart tool, which is interactive,
and you type commands into a command interpreter, and
it tells you stuff. But it's really nothing more
than Disk Management in disguise.

The only way diskpart would help, is it is a text tool.
You run it from command prompt. Unlike Disk Management
which has the GUI. I don't know if your screen reader
might be missing some info from Disk Management, which
could be seen in Diskpart, or not.

In Regedit, you could look in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices,
and there are entries in there like \DosDevices\C: . Presumably,
these keys contain some information about assignments. And since
I have a disk disconnected right now, I'm willing to bet some
of the letters in there, are for that disconnected disk. I
see 18 drive letters listed in there, and I'm using 7 right now
(one partition is Linux EXT2). Again, I don't think looking
there, is going to help you figure out what's going on
with your other "harddiskvolumes".

So the "HarddiskVolume1 and HarddiskVolume15" thing is suspicious,
but I don't know how to gain leverage using that info.

Here's what's hooked up to my system currently:
Standard floppy drive. (3.5)
Iomega Zip drive
DVD-R drive
320GB hard drive (c
250 hard drive (I
250 hard drive (undetected)
I've gone through a lot of drives in these boxes to determine the drive's
size and manufacturer. (a process that has been only partially successful) I
hve a 238GB SATA drive that is failing and I'm trying to get the data off
it, but it has corrupted files, so getting it cleaned is becoming
problematic, to say the least. It also craps out on me when it gets hot, so
R-studio can't really do much with it. There's a 189GB drive, too, which
like the second 250 doesn't detect. So the 1 and15 thing might simply be a
matter of the ones configured in the machine, and there's a possibility it's
just gotten up that high with me mucking about. (And I can't begin to
understand why my old Netware 3.12 Quantum 120MB drive is reading in
R-Studio as a 2TB drive)
I'm pretty mystified myself now, so any ideas will be welcome.

 

[Paul]

Here's what's hooked up to my system currently:
Standard floppy drive. (3.5)
Iomega Zip drive
DVD-R drive
320GB hard drive (c
250 hard drive (I
250 hard drive (undetected)
I've gone through a lot of drives in these boxes to determine the drive's
size and manufacturer. (a process that has been only partially successful) I
hve a 238GB SATA drive that is failing and I'm trying to get the data off
it, but it has corrupted files, so getting it cleaned is becoming
problematic, to say the least. It also craps out on me when it gets hot, so
R-studio can't really do much with it. There's a 189GB drive, too, which
like the second 250 doesn't detect. So the 1 and15 thing might simply be a
matter of the ones configured in the machine, and there's a possibility it's
just gotten up that high with me mucking about. (And I can't begin to
understand why my old Netware 3.12 Quantum 120MB drive is reading in
R-Studio as a 2TB drive)
I'm pretty mystified myself now, so any ideas will be welcome.

OK, the only thing I've discovered since my last post, is it is
possible to have a disk signature collision.

When you connect a new disk, a 32 bit number is assigned to the drive
at random. In addition, 32 bit numbers are assigned to each partition
that gets created.

An article I was reading, claims that if two drives have the same
disk signature, then one of the drives won't be considered.

Whereas, as far as I can remember, even if two partitions have the
same VolumeID number, things still work.

Now, the annoying part, is accessing the signature. If you had Windows 7
you could do this in command prompt.

diskpart
list disk
select disk 0
uniqueid disk

and it would print out the disk signature. The WinXP version of diskpart,
doesn't have uniqueid (I checked). Since I have a test install of Windows 8
on my third disk, I fired that up and got the disk signature.

Now, if I use the dd.exe program, I can do this

dd if=\\?\Device\Harddisk0\Partition0 of=mbrdisk0.bin bs=512 count=1

and what that does, is access harddisk0 as a raw device. Partition0 means
"access the disk relative to sector zero". The "if" part means "input file",
in this case a block device. The "of" part means "output file", and in
this case, I'm storing the data in the file "mbrdisk0.bin". The "bs" is the
block size, and in this case, I know the MBR is 512 bytes or one sector.
I will fetch one block of 512 bytes length.

Now, with a hex editor, I examine the 512 byte file I just captured.
At the line in the hex editor where it says "0x1b0" I can see

000001b0: 00 00 00 00 00 2c 44 63 a1 84 9d 80 a5 01 80 01
-----------

The UniqueID command in Windows 8, said the disk signature was 809d84a1.
In the hex editor, the byte order is reversed. In there I see
"a1 84 9d 80". I'm guessing that is little-endian storage.

Now, imagine if you will, that two disks had 809d84a1. Then one
of the disks (apparently) won't mount. And this can happen,
if you purchased a ham-handed cloning software, that copied
the signature instead of creating a new value.

This is unlikely to be your problem, but I thought I'd toss that in.

So the identifiers a disk has:

1) Disk drive physical serial number (can't be changed)
2) Disk signature. Randomly assigned. At offset 0x1b8 in the
first sector, and in reverse order. If you're good with "dd.exe",
you can read out those numbers from each disk MBR.
3) VolumeID per partition. Each partition has a 32 bit number.
This utility can change it when needed. A copy of Everest Free version,
can also read out VolumeIDs.

"VolumeID utility"
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897436

"Everest (from 2005)"
http://majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Whereas for Disk Signature or UniqueID, a different OS is needed.
And there's a way to do that. If you have either a Windows 7
or a Windows 8 installer DVD, or a Windows 7 or Windows 8 recovery
CD, either of those can be used to run the recovery console,
and you can run a copy of diskpart from there as far as I know.
That would allow examining UniqueIDs without using the dd.exe
program and a hex editor

You can download the Windows 8 Release Preview disc (2.5 or 3GB)
and use that for its recovery console. You can also download
a file like Windows 7 SP1 (X17-24209.iso) from Digital River,
and use that to boot to the recovery console. I have
several disks like that. The disks don't "invalidate" with
time, because you're only using the recovery console (DOS prompt)
capability, and not attempting to install the software. It
allows you to do repair work. WinXP also has a recovery console,
but in this case, we know that diskpart in WinXP lacks the UniqueID
command. It would be super-clever of Microsoft, to offer
the latest diskpart for download, as a separate small download.
What are the odds they'd do that ?

They do offer diskpart, but the copy is ancient history and not
worth the trouble. This is the very first release of it, from years ago.

http://download.microsoft.com/downl...iskPart/1.00.0.1/NT5/EN-US/diskpart_setup.exe

HTH,
Paul

 

[Paul]

Here's what's hooked up to my system currently:
Standard floppy drive. (3.5)
Iomega Zip drive
DVD-R drive
320GB hard drive (c
250 hard drive (I
250 hard drive (undetected)
I've gone through a lot of drives in these boxes to determine the drive's
size and manufacturer. (a process that has been only partially successful) I
hve a 238GB SATA drive that is failing and I'm trying to get the data off
it, but it has corrupted files, so getting it cleaned is becoming
problematic, to say the least. It also craps out on me when it gets hot, so
R-studio can't really do much with it. There's a 189GB drive, too, which
like the second 250 doesn't detect. So the 1 and15 thing might simply be a
matter of the ones configured in the machine, and there's a possibility it's
just gotten up that high with me mucking about. (And I can't begin to
understand why my old Netware 3.12 Quantum 120MB drive is reading in
R-Studio as a 2TB drive)
I'm pretty mystified myself now, so any ideas will be welcome.

Maybe it's the Quantum that's listed in "dd --list" output
as H:, with a size of 100,646,912 bytes ?

If R-Studio lists a drive as 2 TB, the closest number I know
of is 2,199,023,255,552. That is a sector number stored in
a 32 bit integer. An unsigned integer like 0xFFFFFFFF. If
a sector is 512 bytes in length 2**32 x 2**9 = 2,199,023,255,552.

The question would be, either how the USB enclosure cooked up
that number, or how R-Studio mis-interpreted an older standard for
LBA. There are several standards for LBA, and that Quantum drive
would be "ancient history"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_block_addressing

I have a Quantum that old here, but it's buried under other
computer equipment, and I'd never be able to get to it

Paul

 

[Nicole Massey]

Maybe it's the Quantum that's listed in "dd --list" output
as H:, with a size of 100,646,912 bytes ?

If R-Studio lists a drive as 2 TB, the closest number I know
of is 2,199,023,255,552. That is a sector number stored in
a 32 bit integer. An unsigned integer like 0xFFFFFFFF. If
a sector is 512 bytes in length 2**32 x 2**9 = 2,199,023,255,552.

The question would be, either how the USB enclosure cooked up
that number, or how R-Studio mis-interpreted an older standard for
LBA. There are several standards for LBA, and that Quantum drive
would be "ancient history"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_block_addressing

I have a Quantum that old here, but it's buried under other
computer equipment, and I'd never be able to get to it

nNo, H: is the Iomega Zip drive. The quantum is currently not hooked up. But
now it gives me something else to look for in R-Studio. I have a small
amount of data on that drive I'd love to get off it.

 

[Paul]

nNo, H: is the Iomega Zip drive. The quantum is currently not hooked up. But
now it gives me something else to look for in R-Studio. I have a small
amount of data on that drive I'd love to get off it.

I did another test here. I have a USB ZIP 250MB drive. And four or five cartridges.

I plugged in the drive, and using "dd --list", I find that my ZIP is listed
after the other drives. Whereas, yours is listed before. The only thing that
came to mind, is maybe the ZIP has a drive letter assignment forced, is detected
first, and prevents another partition from mounting. But that shouldn't
stop everything from working.

I'd try unplugging the ZIP and repeat some of your testing. In particular,
I'd be curious whether the "dd --list" situation changes at all.
Like, the usage of different HarddiskVolume numbers.

Paul

 

[Nicole Massey]

I did another test here. I have a USB ZIP 250MB drive. And four or five
cartridges.

I plugged in the drive, and using "dd --list", I find that my ZIP is
listed
after the other drives. Whereas, yours is listed before. The only thing
that
came to mind, is maybe the ZIP has a drive letter assignment forced, is
detected
first, and prevents another partition from mounting. But that shouldn't
stop everything from working.

I'd try unplugging the ZIP and repeat some of your testing. In particular,
I'd be curious whether the "dd --list" situation changes at all.
Like, the usage of different HarddiskVolume numbers.

My suspicion is that drive info is sequential based on detection in terms of
the volume stuff.

I've got to get into that machine at some point, because I've got a DVD-R
set as master that isn't the master, so only one of my two DVD-R drives is
working. I'm also thinking about hooking the recalcitrant drives up instead
of my DVD-R drives to see if I get any different results when I do that.
I'll also try bypassing the zip drive to find out what happens with that.