Compaq Replacement HDD Size Discrepancy

[ljg]

I sent a bad HDD to Compaq for warranty replacement. They sent me a 20GB hard disk in return but it only reports as 6.4 GB. One of our techs called Compaq and was told that they have a firmware flash that reprograms a larger size drive to think it's smaller. Is there any way to reprogram the rom so it is the CORRECT size? It would be nice to be able to use the extra 14GB on this drive. It's a Maxtor drive, p/n 294923-001.

 

[ski]

Compaq may have flashed the drive's firmware because the computer's BIOS may not recognize anything larger than 6.4 GB.
Did you ask them about this?

 

[ljg]

as per my previous post, we asked Compaq about this and they said they do it "because they can." This has nothing to do with the BIOS of the system -- they take 40GB drives and flash them down to 10GB ... I'm just looking to see if I can find a utility to "unflash" them.

 

[ski]

It certainly does not sound right that Compaq would mess with a HD's firmware in order to make it's usable space smaller just "because they can".

However, if the size of the defective HD that you returned to them was only 6.4GB, then it makes sense.

 

[yerhead]

you can do one of 2 things to fix this 1 flash the system bios, or down load MAX BLAST from the maxtor web site which will get you around the bios problem, good luck