Deskstar 160 gig IDE size problem

[ruler1]

hi
i have a Deskstar model: HDS722516VLAT20 capacity 164.7GB
when trying to format, partition, resize partition it shows the max capacity as only 32.8 gig. it shows in the bios as 32.8 gig too.
it will appear like that when jumper settings are set as (16 head slave or master) but will show 164 gig when jumper settings are set as (15 head slave or master)
How can i restore the normal size with the 16 head jumper settings? also whats the difference with using 15 head or 16 head?
thank you for your time.

 

[ASG0856]

It is because of the limitations of IDE/ATA. Goto the link below,

http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm

 

[ruler1]

there was nothing on that link that would help, it was only techinical info and maybe way over my head. im looking for for tips that i could try in order to get it working again. i appreciate the help though

 

[ASG0856]

The max drive size you can achieve with 16 heads is 128Gb (in reality all sorts of wierd capacities will show because of the BIOS translation). This is all to do with Heads, No of Sectors, Sector sizes and Cylinders, and the BIOS ability to tranlate these values. Basically, any drive of a capacity of 128Gb and below will work on a '16' Head setting (an ATA limitation). Note, this is NOT 16 physical heads, but a tranlation value used to calculate the 'capacity' of the disk)
Max Sectors 65,536
Heads 16
Maximum Sectors 256
Gives 128 GB

Some BIOS's cannot tranlate because they multiply the heads by 16, giving 256 which is translated a 0 sectors with 0 size, which is an illegal value. By having 15 heads, the result is 240, and the translated cylinder count varies to achieve the disk capacity.

So, you have to have the logical setting for the heads to be set to 15

 

[ruler1]

ok but i have 2 identical maxtor 300 gig hdd's (same models) and 2 identical Deskstar 160 gig hdd's (same models) and the other Deskstar works fine at 164gig.
The deskstar i am having troubles with was working fine before windows disk management had a go at it. i lost two drives at the same time but i already know the other drive is beyond repair.

what i did try was setting it in BIOS manually to show the drive as 164.7 gig which was ok but when loading up any software to check it the drive still shows about 32.8 or 33.8 gig (jumper config 16 head master which it was normally set as).
i contacted Deskstar and they said it sounds like the firmware might be corrupt but i have also tried running their firmware testing software which also didnt detect any problems. strange?

 

[ASG0856]

However, where they paired as SATA and RAID and now you are trying it as a single IDE?

 

[ruler1]

no they are both IDE and they were both slave drives (one on each IDE cable as slave) i havent setup raid at all for any of my drives.
Its just strange that if i use the 15 head jumper setting i can get the full disk capacity of 164.7 gig but on 16 head i cant. maybe i should just use the 15 head setting and be done with it even though its not the right setting?

 

[ruler1]

This problem is now solved!
my solution was i had to set jumper settings on 15 head then resize partition to max size using Maxblast then turn off the computer change the jumper settings to master 16 head then resize again to max size and then create new partition.
was a lot of messing about but it finally works. hope this might help someone in future

 

[firewolfrl]

in the future if you have that issue or you start to get errors

use the powermax utility from maxtor to zero the entire drive

that usually solves or finds drive issues