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

[ericbp]

Dell e1505 notebook
intel 945gm chipset 1.83 ghz
2g ram
windows xp mce

I'm replacing my old 60g hard drive with a new ST9160823AS 160g SATA drive.  I cloned the old hard disk and copied it onto an external usb drive.  I then cloned that drive onto the new drive.  Everything boots up okay, however the drive capacity only reads as the identical size of the old drive (60g). 

I called tech support and the gentleman instructed me to boot from the seatools iso that i burned onto a disc.  I did and scanned the drive, short and long test.  I also tried to set the maximum native capacity, but the test failed, saying something about power cycling.  I've done this process many times, all to the same end. 

Not sure what to try, especially if seatools isn't working anymore. Any help with solving this problem would be greatly appreciated. 

[noegruts]

It sounds like you've ended up with a 60GB partition on your new drive.  Take a look at Disk Management (inside Computer Management) and see if you have a bunch of unused space on that physical drive)

[ericbp]

Actually I thought that as well, but in disk management there is no unallocated space on the new 160g drive.  It literally appears as if the drive capacity is 60 gigs. 

Also, I'm using acronis easy migrate, if that helps.

[GregBray]

Hi,

I am having the exact same issue.  I have upgrade a Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop from a 60 GB drive to a 160 GB drive.  I used Acronis software to restore the drive image from the old drive to the new one.  After doing so, the drive showed only a 60 GB capacity.  I also checked windows disk manager looking to create a new partition with the remaining free space, but it is gone.

When I go into the BIOS, it now shows it as a 60 GB drive.

I have run the SeaTools for DOS, which also shows it as a 60 GB drive.  I ran the Full Erase, and the Advanced Test, and both ran successfully. 

I ran the Set Capacity to MAX Native, and I get this error: 

Error on SetMaxAddressEXT (312581807) = 51:10

Check to be sure that the drive has been Power Cycled

Set Capacity to MAX Native FAILED

I rebooted (power cycle) and tried again with same results.

Any help is appreciated.

[Thord]

Hi!
Same problem for me, but a 250GB disc. ( ST9250827AS ) Cloned a 80GB disc and it now shows 80GB.
SEATools doesn't work either. Ran Set Capacity to MAX Native but same error as for GregBray.
Tried a new clone with Acronis but from a 250GB disc, but then it reported the disc was too small.

[ericbp]

Well, it's mildly comforting that others are having the same or similar problem.  My new HD is just sitting there in my desk.  Not sure what to do.  Are any Seagate reps going to chime in?

[AlanM]

Hi:

Thanks for your participation in the our forums so far. Please remember that this is an online community where many of the responses come from other users, such as yourself. The forum is not a replacement for Customer Service. Seagate representative do from time to time come to lend a hand answering posts but not necessarily on a continual or frequent basis. If you have immediate needs, your best bet is to contact Customer Service directly whether by phone, email, or chat.
Thanks.

[ToddR]

I bought three similar drives (ST90250N1A1S) and had this issue.  I returned one drive to the store and came home to try again.  I had the same problem, the drive capacity was truncated to the source drive's size. 

I tried seatools for DOS on three different notebooks with the same error as above.  I installed the drive internally and still had the error.  I tried chatting with a Seagate Tech to no avail.  He did give me a clue when he asked what systems I was using.  All of my notebooks are Dell's.  I also remembered someone telling me that he could not do a quick SATA erase due to the Dell BIOS not passing certain commands to the drives.

I took my drive with its USB/eSATA enclosure to my self-built white box with an Intel board, internal SATA connectors and an SIS card with an eSATA port.  I initially used the eSATA port.  I still had no luck trying to reset capacity to maximum... same error as above, again.

I removed the seagate drive from the enclosure and plugged it directly to the onboard connector (an ICH7 chipset), ran seatools for DOS and was finally able to sucessfully reset the LBA to maximum.

So, try doing this on a "generic" onboard SATA controller...

Good luck

[GregBray]

Thank you for providing the additional insight and ideas, as I'm sure that might help point us in the right direction, but for those of us who don't happen to have a self built, generic PC laying around to plug the drive into, any other suggestions?

[GregBray]

Hi all,

I got this link from Acronis tech support.  It appears to accurately diagnose the issue we are having with the hard drive for the laptop.

http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/hpa-issues.htm

I got my disk reset this weekend, but I could not do it within the laptop.  I had to load it as a drive in my desktop and then run the reset utility.  After resetting it, I then also had to use the SeaTools for DOS to do a full wipe of the drive, and I did that while the drive was connected to the desktop as well.  However, this was a Dell Vostro desktop, so it does not appear to require a generic desktop to get the reset to work, as indicated in the previous post.

To the person who indicated that we should ask Seagate Tech Support instead of posting to this forum, I submitted my ticket about 2 weeks ago and I'm still waiting for any type of acknowledgement or response from them.  Not exactly helpful.

Good luck all.