80GB HDD reporting as 60GB!

[infra_red_dude]

my friend has got a seagate barracuda 7200.7 st380011a, ata/100 80gb hdd. recently the driver on its own started showing the rated capacity as 60gb! this had happend to him before. but as the hdd was in warranty (it still is) he got it replaced. now it has happend again. me checked everything and everything is fine. the capacity is reported so in the bios itself!

now the last thing to do is to flash the firmware. but seagate doesn't provide its firmware on its site. anyone knows how to get the firmware?

ps: wot do u think mite be the problem?

 

[theraven]

if he got it replaced then the problem can lie in 2 places
1) ide cable
2) motherboard ide connector

try replacing the cable once n checkin

 

[infra_red_dude]

ok i got the disk at my place did some research work....everything is perfect (ide cable/controller).

wid seagate seatools i got the following info:
the current lba/sectors (set) is 122744431 which corresponds to 62.85gb whereas the native lba/sector is 156301488 which corresponds to 80gb.

no matter how many times i try to set it to the native seatools gives the error "operation failed". this is the reason why the hdd is reporting the wrong size to bios.

any help?

 

[infra_red_dude]

ok while researching on the net found something really interesting!!! this article explains how to unlock extra space from ur hdd!

*www.theinquirer.net/?article=14597

sigh! but it doesn't help me in my work! just found it interesting so posted here..

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so anybody here facing this problem? or haf faced a similar kinda problem? kindly help.

 

[LordDJ]

if he got it replaced then the problem can lie in 2 places
1) ide cable

How can the cable be a problem in reporting the size??

 

[theraven]

the cable can be the cause of many problems for a hard disk
can also cause the system to hang if the wires are not proper
anyways it was jsut speculation
do u have a better solution ? then post that

 

[Vishal Gupta]

Sometimes Jhumper settings of HDD also causes for less size!

See at the HDD, there will be instructions how to change the jhumper to change the size of HDD...

 

[mario_pant]

take my advice... bring the disk from ur friend to ur house or take ur comp there.... and then plz tell is u are seeing the same thing....
if it showz 80GB then cirtainly there is no prob with the HDD.....

also try copying the entire data on another disk and then formatting this one.......

tell me about it......

 

[infra_red_dude]

that's wot buddy! i tried everything. got his hdd at my place. shows the same thing! 60gb! obviously palz i'll post here only after conducting all tests at my place!

tried all jumper config (master,slave, cable select). checked the hdd wid seagate's seatools and disk manager, same thing. even wid other partitioning software! the hdd reports as a 62865mb one! even in bios! so all the software see it as a 60gb hdd. the firmware is ok as it reports everywhere as ST280011A!

i just can't figure out wots the problem! baffling! i mean its the first time i've seen something like this!

ps: btw, there are no physical bad sectors on the disk! neither are the jumpers set to limit the size at 32gb!

 

[LordDJ]

Dude one suggestion, might be overkill though. Try a low level format. Period.

Before that why don't you contact the service centre or customer care?

 

[magneto_ms]

well don't know why it again happened to a new disk, But u are not viewing the disk space in Windows 98 while having a 20gb drive under NTFS, are u? (silly, but happened to me once.. )

 

[mod-the-pc]

I beleive a low level format would void your warranty

 

[mario_pant]

hey i had just ordered a seagate 80GB disk..... and now u guys are changing my mind.....
anyone had this problem ever?

 

[LordDJ]

I beleive a low level format would void your warranty

Definitely would. But his is out of warranty. Anyway I would never do it. Would be happy at least I get 60!

 

[infra_red_dude]

nope, it is still under warranty! and magneto_ms i've deleted all the partitions (read the posts, it sayz that 60gb is being reported in bios itself!)

i did a low level format too! nothing helps! actually no end user can perform a low level format as the utilities aint freely available. the most that can be done is a zero fill format. thats wot i did. well i haf no problem wid the dealer. he'll replace the hard disk if my friend takes it to him. wot i'm concerned is that in spite of replacing, why is it happening?? i wanna kno the reason so that for the next 5 years (warranty period) my friend doesn't hafta goto the dealer about a 100 times for replacement!

well mario_pant, don't go in for 80gb. get a 120gb one dude! and btw where do u buy hardware from?

ps: the customer care is clueless. they dun wanna crack their heads on this! they said leave the disk here and it'll be duely replaced. i'm bent on knowing the cause so that a hell lot of ppl don't face this problem!

 

[kjuvale]

hi i jsut purchased 80gb seagate hdd why it shows as 74.52Gb please explain.

 

[jay4u]

maybe there are some unpartition space... or partition as ext3 for linux which is not been counted by u... if that is not so.. and since u tried a friends hdd at ur place with same problem.. and u also checked the ide cable.. it makes me wonder.. what the reason behind it will be

go...do a low level format using seatools...

 

[infra_red_dude]

the thing is that you can't low level format the hard disk easily....most of them offer zero fill format..which is not exactly low level formatting...

no non-fat/ntfs partitions...well whether you haf these partitions or not..the bios or the disk management/diagnostic utility detects the capacity of the hdd directly by probing the disk...anyways..my fren returned it to seagate..they'll be shortly replacing it...they said even their technicians couldn't find out wot the problem was...mebbe they should send it to the R&D center so that future problems like these do not occur! this is the second time thats happening wid my friend! i wonder if the whole batch of the 80gb barracuda disks was faulty...

 

[countrock]

ya mostly a faulty batch. exchange it after a few more weeks