Maxtor 6L200P0 Capacity Issue

[john65uk]

hi,

i have recently put together a new system and have an issue with the Maxtor 6L200P0 HDD that is running as the primary slave intended simply to hold files. my system is as follows:

Windows XP Professional Service Pack 2 (build 2600)
AMD Athlon 64 3200+ skt AM2
ASROCK AM2NF4G-SATA2 1.00
BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. P1.00 04/28/2006
primary master Maxtor 6L160P0
1GB pq1 memory which has 128MB shared for onboard graphics
NEC DVD_RW ND-4571A

i have enabled 48-bit LBA using Mator Big Drive enabler successfully. i also made sure it was NTFS format. when i first used the HDD, which is not new, my system gave a maximum capacity of 127GB. i already knew this to be an issue. after attempting to remedy the problem with MaxBlast4 i somehow ended up reducing it further to 31.4GB. since then i have tried every possible remedy on the net and to no avail.

my bios recognizes the 6L200P0, but every thing i have tried, partition magic, maxblast4, bootitng, all see the maximum capacity as around 32GB? any ideas, most appreciated.

 

[wolluf]

1. Are the jumpers set correctly (ie, not using a limiting jumper setting)?

2. Is the drive recognised as its full capacity (btw - what is its full capacity?) by the bios?

3. I'd try writing binary zeroes to the drive & then start again. I think powermax (from Maxtor) will do a 'quick' binary zero write (start & end of drive) which should be enough to wipe off any dodgy mbr/partition table entries. Use XP's disk management to partition/format - not 3rd party apps.

 

[paparazi]

I don't really understand why you would need to use a third party tool (Maxtor software) to enable you to see all of this drive.
The Asrock AM2NFG-SATA2 is a pretty new motherboard and has absolutely know problems recognising drives many times larger than this DiamondMax Plus10 160gig unit.
I think you need to make 100% sure of your jumper settings, delete all partitions (there will likely be more than one by the sounds of things) Do this during a fresh XP install and then remake just the one partition of maximum capacity, format NTFS and follow through XP install.
If Windows still doesn't see the full capacity use Maxtors utilities to "Low Level" Zero fill, the drive (this does takes hours unfortunately)
Martin


We like members to GIVE and not just TAKE.
Participate and help others.

 

[john65uk]

my apologies for not replying and thanking you earlier, i have been away visiting family. i am afraid i am something of a novice compared to fellow board members like yourselves, so please forgive my use of third party when windows can do it alone.

the hdd in question is a maxtor 6L200P0 and there is no jumper required if run as a slave.

i used the maxtor utility to low level zero and still it reads as a 31.4GB in windows disk management. here is the follwoing information displayed when completing the zero fill:

LBA: 398296832 Blocks 256

on first accessing windows disk mamnagemnet i had to initialize the new hdd. in the properties, volumes, section it reads as follows:

disk disk 1
type dynamic
status online
partition style master boot record (MBR)
capacity 32248 MB
unallocated space 32248 MB
reserved space 0 MB

in the bios it is recognized as 33.8 GB, despite me having almost 190 GB of use in the past.

thanks for your patience and understanding.

 

[wolluf]

Try jumpering it as cable select. Its acting as if the limitation jumper is set - you're sure there is no jumper set in the limitation position? If this is the case, and cable select doesn't work, I'd try actually putting jumper in the limitation position (in case its got its wires crossed!). If that works, and under warranty, I'd get it replaced (as drive is obviously not functioning to spec).

If no joy - if its under warranty I'd try to get it replaced.
Have you run the powermax diagnostic?