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

[fzabkar]

I forgot to add that one thing which would be very illuminating would be a Sector Inspector report. This would show us exactly how the partition table and boot sector are laid out.

http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

I don't know if SI works in Vista, but could you extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file? The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt. You may need to give yourself administrator privileges.

Alternatively, if SI won't run, then you could capture the contents of sectors 0 (MBR) and 2048 (boot sector) using a disc editor such as HxD or DMDE (freeware).

http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd
http://softdm.com/download.html

[Cantbecanit]

There's a section in Diskwizard that list's the numbers you want Franc, I'll send those to you as and when, the ones you want are the rows of numbers followed by abstract chinese type digits? with the drive blocks broken up into levels?

Formatting it right now and going to do the blank store drive experience next, data will still be of use to you like that though?

Have to do as many scenario's as I can so things will change for a few months regarding what is on it etc, need to read up on the Ubuntu install to prep for that next so I can add to the install list for people to reference from.

[Cantbecanit]

64 bit Ubuntu is on now, pretty standard affair but shows the whole 3TB in V11.04 (Natty Narwhal), will do a screenshot later to show, but there's not a lot to say about it, it is what it is Ubuntu showing full capacity, will have a little test drive but it won't be on there long, especially as Ubuntu will run from a memory stick anyway.

[VeganFanatic]

Linux has been able to boot GPT disks for some time now. It does assume that the MB will still boot with the disk attached fine.

Windows 7 x64 can boot GPT disks and I believe Vista x64 can also do that with SP2

I suggest when shopping for a new motherbaord that UEFI be checked for under the BIOS specifications.

UEFI supports GPT boot which wil deal iwth the disk problem for a while anyway.

[Cantbecanit]

I'm looking at an i5 set up now, I find two types UEFi and Hybrid EFi, which would you say would be the pick VF?

[fzabkar]

The last time I downloaded DiscWizard, it was over 100MB in size. That's about 99MB too big.

Instead, all I need in answer to my question are the 512 bytes of data reported by the drive in response to the ATA Identify Device command.

Twenty years ago I downloaded the following 20KB file from Seagate's BBS using a 2400bps dialup modem:

ftp://ftp.seagate.com/techsuppt/seagate_utils/findat10.zip

FIND-ATA.EXE is a small (24KB) DOS utility that does exactly what I want. In fact it still works, provided that you execute it from a real DOS prompt, and provided that the SATA controller is configured for IDE compatiblity/legacy mode in BIOS.

I don't know what you are seeing in DiscWizard. However, you should be able to see a text string containing the model number. The text may be byte-swapped, ie instead of "ST33000651AS", the model may be reported as "TS33006015SA".

That said, if you have SeaTools for Windows, then it will automatically capture the desired data to a 512-byte *.ATA file, where the asterisk is the drive's serial number.

BTW, I'll understand if you have better things to do than to indulge my curiosity. I'd buy a 3TB drive for myself, but none of my 10 or so discarded PCs has the performance to satisfy Vista's minimum standards. As the saying goes, "what Intel giveth, Microsoft taketh away". :-)

[Cantbecanit]

LOL, Na I don't mind sending you some figures, I have decided against taking it apart or Hyperterminal'ing it though, last thing I need is to break it or brick it playing about with it, I can scan the underside for you though if that helps?

[VeganFanatic]

I suggest selecting a triue UEFI so that you will be able to use new models of disk given that the industry still has much more capacity to offer.

I use Windows 7 x64 and I have found it to be good. Seems to be much more stable when compared to XP

[Cantbecanit]

Cheers, so it's out with the hybrid then, shame really as I am a bit of a Gigabyte repeat customer, have to have a look at what MSi have in the pipe, can't do Asus too many bad memories I'm afraid, I'll do the homework anyway, spent three days trying to decide which shall be my next case, got it down to two, a Fractal R3 Design XL or a Corsair Obsidian 650, Corsair sadly carries the price premium though, and the Fractal is a bit temp happy so I don't really know which way to go with it.

Anyway a little findings update based on a sata 2 board.

There is a bug that appears when running Intel RST V10 drivers that hangs the pc, this is with a 2TB 750GB split btw. Rolling back to V9 has shut me out and I can't run AHCi nor reload the Intel drivers as you have to be in that mode in the bios to load them but can't get past a BSOD if you have the bios enabled, got back once with system restore but that has failed this time as well so it's out with the setup disks once again, well that was the idea of having the drive so I could trip up 1st hand and write it up how to avoid the issues for other's.

Not sure if this is partition related though and I'm going to cut the drive in 3 equal parts next and see if things improve with a multi boot system of 3 1TB partitions.

Other than that it's a spangly bit of kit and well worth considering if you want a large storage/program drive, btw the bug isn't just Seagate affected it's other brands as well, so it's deffo not a Seagate issue this time.

[VeganFanatic]

Right now I am looking at the Asus Sabertooth 990FX as an upgrade

Its a bit expensive but looks like it will last.