Laptop Drive Showing only 32gb On A 40gb Drive

[MaxBurn]

Here is a strange one. I have a Toshiba MK4021GAS that is a 40Gig drive. The BIOS reports it as a 38Gig drive and when formated it winds up at a little over 32Gig.

This is a system pull from an unknown notebook and when I first took a look at the drive with partition magic 8.01 it said there was a partition on there that was larger than the drive. I deleted that and created a new NTFS and I wound up with something a little smaller than I expected.

The BIOS reports the SMART is OK and I have it set to auto for the hard drive detection. (currently testing it on a desktop Intel D875PBZ board)

I tried fdisk /mbr and formating as fat32 to no avail. I even took it to another computer (ABIT KT7A) and it says that the drive is still a 38Gig drive.

BootIt NG reports the same thing Partition Magic does.

I plan to install this into an external USB/Firewire controller so it's not a huge deal, but I would like the space. I have another 40Gig laptop drive (IC25N040 IBM) that is also a 40Gig drive. It is installed in a USB enclosure (Oxford 911 chipset) and PM8 says it is 38,154.3MB, but this Toshiba drive in the same USB enclosure is detected as a 32,247.6MB drive.

I never noticed big differences in drive size for the same rated capacity between different manufacturers before. Something wrong with the drive? Think it's fixable by me (no warranty)? I didn't see a low level format utility for these on Toshiba's website, anyone know of one? I didn't even see a drive diagnostic disk like WD and Maxtor have.

 

[Fushigi]

40GB advertised size = 40 billion bytes (40,000,000,000). The 38GB you see formatted is because the computer calls 1GB 2^30bytes, or 1,073,741,824 bytes.

But your 32GB partition size is due to something different. It's either a BIOS limitation or a drive controller limitation. In the external chassis you plan on installing the drive in, this shouldn't matter; it should understand a drive that size and let you use the full 40(38)GB.

If you want to verify the full size on your machine, on the BIOS front you can check your PC/laptop manufacturer for a BIOS update that includes larger drive support.

If it's not the BIOS but is the drive controller, then don't worry about what it's currently reporting. You can't change that out in a notebook.

Either way, I'd recommend ignoring what you're currently seeing. Just put the drive in the enclosure and then re-partition/re-format it from there. With the Oxford chipset, you should have no problems seeing the full 40(38)GB.

And just for kicks, you might hit Toshiba's site and look for a firmware update for the drive itself.

 

[MaxBurn]

The issue is no matter what I do I can only get a maximum partition size of a little over 32Gig no matter if it's on the Oxford USB, the Abit KT7A, or the Intel D875PBZ. I tried repartitioning it on all three controllers and they all agree on this. The drive is clearly labled as 40Gig and I know about the bytes difference which I think is roughly 6%.

This is just plain weird. Especially the way the larger than the drive partition was on there. I have only seen that once before when I took apart a spanned set of drives and repartitioned them, the first drive had a crazy large partition on it.

 

[mubs]

Fushigi has covered most of the angles, but I'd like add something.

Especially because this is a pull, the first thing I'd do is initialize (zero out, low-level format, whatever you want to call it) the first few tracks. I once had a similar problem with W2k server and Solaris x86 installed as dual boot (with a boot manager) on the same drive. I just couldn't correct the problem till I initialized the first few tracks.

Some boot sector viruses are known to reduce available space, and will not go away by repartitioning and formatting.

I have an older Quantum utility called zerofill that should do the trick; I don't think it's specific to Quantum only. I also have utilities from WD and Maxtor. Let me know if you want any of those.

 

[MaxBurn]

I asked fujitsu if they had a utility and they don't. They told me to use fdisk(I don't think they understood the question). Wonder if the WD disk will work, I have dozens of those here. Could you email me the quantum utility at scottjal(a)maine.rr.com? Ill check if they make it available on line too. Write zeros is what I wanted to do but I didn't think of other manufacturers disks, thanks.

 

[CougTek]

I know some 3.5" drives have a jumper configuration to limit the usable capacity to 32GB (IBM drives have it at least). I don't have the knowledge about your particular 2.5" Toshiba drive to tell if it features such a jumper setting, but I believe this is something you should be looking into.

 

[CougTek]

Hmmm, looking at Toshiba's website, there's apparently no 32GB limitation jumper setting on your drive. Oh well, I tried...

 

[Howell]

After the smaller than expected partition is created is there space left over to create a second partition so that the total partitioned space is what you expect.

I'm not suggesting this as a final solution but for additional info about the problem.

 

[MaxBurn]

Howell: There is no space left over after I create the 32gig partition.

Cougtek: this is a laptop hard drive, I don't think I have seen one of those with 32gig limit jumpers. There is however settings for CHS printed on the drive to make it an 8Gig drive.

I am using seagates tools to zero the drive now. Seatools correctly identified it as a 40Gig drive so I have a little hope.

On a brighter note Fujitsu replied that they don't have any drive utilitys for download but checked for me and the drive is still under waranty until 2005.

Thanks guys.

 

[MaxBurn]

To give you an idea what I am dealing with you can see in this picture

http://scottjal.ath.cx/ebay/drives.JPG

The IC25N040 is an IBM laptop 40Gig drive <-- shown as disk 5
The MK4021GAS is suposed to be a 40Gig drive <-- shown as disk 1

 

[MaxBurn]

By the way that picture is after I did the zero writing. I let it run for four hours and it zeroed 75% of the drive. In the past I have only had to zero the first couple minutes to correct problems.

I also read the SMART info using Dtemp and it says everything is in the green.

Do I send the drive back to toshiba and tell them it isn't big enough?

 

[Buck]

I would suspect one of two things with this drive:

1) Someone ran something similar to Ontrack Disk Mangler, which allows you to "Set Drive Size". This automatically sets the drive to 32GB to help overcome any potential BIOS limitations. Writing zeros to the drive won't change this feature, the tool would need to be run, and the feature disabled.

2) The drive has been formatted by Toshiba as a 32GB but the drive capacity labels ( Words 1, 3, and 5 for CHS or Word 60 and 61 for LBAs) have been set differently.

The third possibility seems to have been eliminated, which would be a cylinder reduction clip.

Exchange the drive (I wouldn't be surprised if this was a refurbished unit anyway).

 

[MaxBurn]

Buck, I suspect you are on to something with the disk manager idea. Is ontrak the only thing that will do that or can I undo it with some other utility? Drive Image, Ghost, Partition Magic, BootIt NG, I have all these and have wondered around with them and havn't seen anything that would help. Also this would make the BIOS see the drive as a smaller drive than it is as I described my drive being seen as a smaller drive?

I doubt that Toshiba did it, wouldn't they have put a sticker on there saying that? As it is there are two stickers on it that say it's a 40Gig.

 

[MaxBurn]

Or anyone have an image of Ontrak I can borrow to fix this?

 

[mubs]

A zeroing program that starts at track 0 sector 0 should clear out Ontrack, because it will set the drive back to "factory settings".

If it doesn't, then it's not a true zeroing or initializing program, because it's acting like a formatting utility, working inside the partition it sees.

 

[Buck]

A zeroing program that starts at track 0 sector 0 should clear out Ontrack, because it will set the drive back to "factory settings".

If it doesn't, then it's not a true zeroing or initializing program, because it's acting like a formatting utility, working inside the partition it sees.

Indeed mubs, that will certainly clear out all data from data tracks. However, cylinder reduction is not recorded in data tracks, just as other data related to minimum and maximum LBAs are not recorded in data tracks. Thus, writing zeros to a drive will not 'clear out' this reduction method. In the case of Ontrack Disk Manager, their Dynamic Drive Overlay doesn't even need to reside in the Master Boot Sector for this technique to work. Thus, you will need the software used to set this feature in order to disable it.

PS: Sector counts start with the number one, whereas tracks start with the number zero.

MaxBurn, drive manufacturers do make the odd mistake where the drive label does not correctly represent the drive size. This happens with new drives, but more often with refurbished drives.

 

[MaxBurn]

I tried the Ontrak disk manager and got no dice, said it didn't find that it was set on that drive. Also it couldn't find the drive's max size either but it blamed that on the fact that not all drives suport that feature.

I RMA'd the drive with toshiba, will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[Buck]

I RMA'd the drive with toshiba, will be interesting to see what happens.

Yes, it will be interesting.

 

[MaxBurn]

Yes, no real negatives for me:

1; they exchange the drive with another - me happy
2; they fix the issue with this one - me happy
3; they send it back to me as is - not as happy as I could be but i know the drive works fine. It passed spinrite after like 8 hours.

Thanks for all the suggestions guys.

One final question:

Indeed mubs, that will certainly clear out all data from data tracks. However, cylinder reduction is not recorded in data tracks, just as other data related to minimum and maximum LBAs are not recorded in data tracks.

If it's not there where is it written and what programs can edit it? I thought this was something that was reserved for the drive manufacturers?

 

[Buck]

If it's not there where is it written and what programs can edit it? I thought this was something that was reserved for the drive manufacturers?

This data is written in areas customarily called 'negative cylinders' or 'negative tracks'. This is just area on the drive used to store necessary data, such as the LBA count. This area is accessed by the BIOS, and can of course be accessed by third party software (which the BIOS really is) to record, change, or read specific data. When the drive is accessed in this manner it is referred to as 'native mode' or a mode that is at the fundamental heart of the drive. The data tracks that people are so familiar with are similar to the trailer end of a delivery truck. It is the main reason the product or truck is being used, but the actual business end of a delivery truck is the tractor, without it, the trailer would have no where to go.

The Identify Device command transfers 512 bytes of data that specifies the drive’s parameters, such as Words 1, 3, and 5. These are used for CHS calculations and used as a label. Words 60 and 61 are used for the total number of addressable sectors or LBAs. Words 100-103 are used for the maximum user LBA for 48-bit addressable sectors. Acoustic mode is Word 94, and bits 7-0 determine the current automatic acoustic management value. Then, by using the Set Features command through feature register 42h, you could set the Acoustic Mode. All of this is part of the ATA Command set.

 

[MaxBurn]

Thanks for the info buck. The drive is at toshiba now and they are saying a 10 to 30 day turnaround is normal. Geesh, I guess I should have gone for the advance exchange.

 

[Buck]

Thanks for the info buck. The drive is at toshiba now and they are saying a 10 to 30 day turnaround is normal. Geesh, I guess I should have gone for the advance exchange.

Wow that is a long time. You could get a new 40GB 5,400-rpm for about $120.00.

 

[MaxBurn]

Dear Customer,

I checked the RMA# Txxxxx that you provided on your email, and your request is for model# HDD2182CZE01. For this particular model, we are currently experiencing part shortage. Our normal Turn-Around-Time for repair is 30 business days or first come first out. We would fulfill your request in a quicker manner when this part is in available.

Sorry for the delay.

Ashika
Toshiba Repair Center

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Well it looks like I am getting a different drive anyway, no attempt to correct mine it looks like. I thought these things were out of production, they are a pretty low spec laptop drive. Retail nomen is MK4021GAS and are everywhere

 

[Buck]

Just like the monkey said when they cut off his tail, "Won't be long now."

 

[MaxBurn]

Update: Got it back yesterday, they replaced it with a new one of the same model. I was surprised that they didn't fix it, but I am not complaining. It works great.