Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[sh00bie]

I'm not really sure what happened, and I'm in a little bit of a panic 'cause of my data on the drive.

I was in the Windows Disk Manager (XP Pro) assigning different drive letters to some other devices and trying to activate some old drives I had connected. After some fiddling around, I happened to notice that my secondary drive (a 1.5TB SATA I've been using for almost a year) was reporting as only 500GB. Further still, in Windows properties it was showing as completely full at ZERO bytes, and said it needed to be formated!

AHHHH!!!

I poked at it a bit, tried it in an external USB case, then tried it attached to another computer (a Vista laptop) and all results were the same. 500GB, requesting formatting.

Needless to say, I'm not interested in formatting the drive 'cause I have data on it I haven't had a chance to backup yet. (You've heard this before, I know...I should have a better backup solution, I know...)

I grabbed SeaTools for Windows and did some of the basic checks but they turned up nothing. I then made a boot disk for the SeaTools for DOS and I started the Long Test. It's been running for about 4 hours, almost done. In the details pane it shows the drive as 1500.301 GB with the right ST #, 48bit, etc.

I'm not sure what to do next. I need a bit of guidence since I'm running scared through this. I don't want to lose my data! I've already committed myself to building a better backup solution once I'm through this nightmare!

HELP! Tell me there's hope!

(PS - Thanks, and hello!)

UPDATE - Long Test completed, and a Short Test was run after automatically. Both returned PASSED.

Max Native Address: 2930277167    (<-- no idea what this is )

Gonna try booting to Windows and see if there's any change. If not, gonna wait a bit for responses here. I might try doing the Max Native Capacity thing.

[fzabkar]

I suspect you have a Gigabyte motherboard with an Xpress Recovery BIOS. If so, then BIOS has truncated your drive.

See this currently active thread:
http://forum.hddguru.com/lost-partition-hitachi-1gb-hdt721010sla360-t15662.html

Other references:

http://tw2005.giga-byte.com/MotherBoard/FileList/NewTech/tech_xpress3.htm
http://www.hdat2.com/hdat2_faq.html#q1

BTW, I believe this problem is now covered in the Common Issues thread:
http://stx.lithium.com/t5/ATA-and-Serial-ATA-drives/Common-issues-check-here-first/td-p/3988

[sh00bie]

When you say it truncated the drive, does that mean anything beyond 500GB is destroyed?

Gigabyte does have some cruddy support. Although I've been running this MB and BIOS for over 3 years now, it wouldn't surprise me if something like this popped up. It's one reason my next machine won't have a Gigabyte MB.

The first thread you mentioned talked about "HDD Capacity Restore". Is this the same as the Set to Max Native option in the SeaTools DOS program? (I'm going to Google the forementioned shortly.) Are both data safe?

Also, will this resolve the issue with the drive thinking it's RAW? Like I said in my first post, Windows keeps wanting to format it.

[sh00bie]

TTT

[fzabkar]

AFAIK, HDD Capacity Restore, SeaTools ' "Set to Max Native", and HDAT2 are all able to restore your drive's original factory capacity in a non-destructive manner. Many people have experienced the same problem, and none have reported data loss.

I don't know how the problem relates to the "RAW" issue, but I would scan your drive looking for evidence of BIOS code, as discussed in the HDD Guru thread.

[sh00bie]

I just tried the SeaTools for DOS "set to max native" option under "Advanced Features" and it failed.

Results:

Error on SetMaxAddressEXT(2930277167) = 51:10

Check to be sure that the drive has been Power Cycled

Set Capacity to MAX Native FAILED

What does "Power Cycled" mean?

[sh00bie]

Okay, I was able to get past the "Power Cycle" issue and performed a "Set to Max Native" operation. It said it succeeded, however when I go into Windows it is still showing as roughly 500GB with a 1TB unused partition after that.

Still confused and wandering adrift...

[Grim0x]

Okie doke, Good direction fbar - and good work shoobie. Now you engage in data recovery ^_^ DO NOT DO ANYTHING ELSE TO THIS DRIVE BEFORE WE RETRIEVE THE DATA. This includes adding/removing/editing ANY of the drive's contents. Download first software on this page: http://www.raymond.cc/blog/archives/2008/01/24/top-10-free-data-recovery-software/ Here are other free ones. http://free-backup.info/data-recovery-software.htm http://recovery-review.com/ For ease of use, I reccomend either recuva, recover my files, undelete, or active @ recovery. They're all free, and will be able to scan your entire disk (partitioned area AND non partitioned area) and show your recoverable files (the ones that would be on the other half). DO NOT RECOVER FILES FROM A DRIVE, TO THE DRIVE ITSELF. IT WILL NOT WORK OUT. you must recover them to another HDD, or storage medium. Now, IF you sail upon the seas (arghhh!) and you can get your hands on Partition Table Doctor - chances are, you could simple REPAIR your damaged partition, and for me personally, would be the first thing i'd try. -All the best.

[fzabkar]

To answer your first question, "Max Native Address: 2930277167" means that the drive has 2930277167 sectors. Each sector has a Logical Block Address (LBA).

The drive's native capacity is ...

2930277167 sectors x 512 bytes/sector = 1 500 301 909 504 bytes

I don't understand why your drive is now not showing its original file structure. I can only imagine that in "poking it", you somehow repartitioned it. In any case, before embarking on a data recovery exercise, I suggest that you first examine the disc. This will at least tell you what happened, and may point you to the best course of action.

To this end, could we see the partition table and boot sector with Microsoft's Sector Inspector?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt which you can then upload to a file sharing service so that we can examine it.

[sh00bie]

Grim0x:

I bought a 2TB external drive to use for this effort (it will become a backup drive once I have my files back). So I am copying anything I can get to that drive and not anywhere on my internal drives.

For recovery I buckled under the panic and went ahead and bought "File Recovery for Windows" from Seagate. I may be naive in saying this, but I assume the recovery product from the manufacturer is acceptable.

I have another thread regarding an issue with THAT, which you can read here:

http://forums.seagate.com/t5/ATA-and-Serial-ATA-drives/File-Recovery-Files-Recover-as-0bytes/td-p/52... 

fzabkar:

Thanks for clarifying the Native Address thing! It's amazing how much I've forgotten over the years.

I'll run the sector tool and report back my findings. If this turns out to be fixable by just giving the partition table a good thumping, I'll feel like an idiot! lol

(But that's okay...I'd rather be an idiot with my files back and a lesson learned, than continue in this heck, lol.)