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From: root on 4 Feb 2010 00:41
Ivor Jones <ivor(a)thisaddressis.invalid> wrote:
> On 03/02/10 23:15, spike1(a)freenet.co.uk wrote:
>> And verily, didst Ivor Jones<ivor(a)thisaddressis.invalid> hastily babble thusly:
>>> On 03/02/10 09:10, chris wrote:
>>>> On 03/02/10 01:48, Ivor Jones wrote:
>>>
>>> [snip]
>>>
>>>>> Is there any way to get the rest of this drive back..? I tried GParted
>>>>> but that still only sees the drive as a 60GB partition, as does the BIOS
>>>>> setup utility on the laptop.
>>>>
>>>> Why not wipe it and restart? Create a 60Gb partition on the new disk
>>>> (with a LiveCD) this time around and then restore to it.
>>>
>>> Erm.. it's a 500GB disk..! I just can't see anything over 60GB. Every
>>> tool I have tried (testdisk, sfdisk, fdisk, gparted) all say it's a 60GB
>>> (58GB to be exact) and won't address any more space.
>>
>> Wipe the partition table with dd from a live linux cd.
>> dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=10
>>
>> should do the trick.
>
> Nope :-( Still only reported in BIOS as 58GB.
>
> Ivor
>

What does fdisk say after you have wiped the partition
table?
From: Nigel Wade on 4 Feb 2010 05:08
On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:27:02 +0000, Ivor Jones wrote:

> On 03/02/10 09:10, chris wrote:
>> On 03/02/10 01:48, Ivor Jones wrote:
>
> [snip]
>
>>> Is there any way to get the rest of this drive back..? I tried GParted
>>> but that still only sees the drive as a 60GB partition, as does the
>>> BIOS setup utility on the laptop.
>>
>> Why not wipe it and restart? Create a 60Gb partition on the new disk
>> (with a LiveCD) this time around and then restore to it.
>
> Erm.. it's a 500GB disk..! I just can't see anything over 60GB. Every
> tool I have tried (testdisk, sfdisk, fdisk, gparted) all say it's a 60GB
> (58GB to be exact) and won't address any more space.
>
> Testdisk does say the following on startup:
>
> Disk /dev/sda - 58GB / 54GiB - ATA WDC WD5000BEVT-0
>
> Hidden sectors are present
>
> size 114270345 sectors
> user_max 114270345 sectors
> native_max 976773168 sectors
> dco 976773168 sectors
> Host Protected Area (HPA) present.
>
>
> So it looks like it can see that there is space beyond what it
> recognises (native_max) but how do I get it back..? I am a complete
> newbie to this level of disk modifications, at the end of the day it's a
> new drive and contains no data that needs recovery, so worst case
> scenario is replace it, but obviously I don't want to do that if at all
> possible..!
>
> Thanks for all advice so far.
>
> Ivor

It looks like the HD has a Host Protected Area set (hence the "Hidden
sectors are present"). That's a very nasty trick of some BIOS where the
system recovery utilities are protected by the BIOS issuing a SET MAX
ADDRESS. If your BIOS issues this every time the system boots then you
won't be able to see more than 60GB on any disk. Any disk you put in may
have it's size limited to 60GB permanently (it's rather tricky to reset
the MAX ADDRESS if it's made permanent).

Some external IDE enclosures also do this. I had a Maxtor one which did a
SET MAX ADDRESS to 300GB (that's the size of the disk it was supplied
with). When I replaced the 300GB disk with a 500GB disk it was limited to
300GB. That's how I found out about this, and how bothersome it is to get
that MAX ADDRESS removed permanently. I used HDAT2 to eradicate it.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_Protected_Area

--
Nigel Wade

From: chris on 5 Feb 2010 03:50
On 05/02/10 03:05, Ivor Jones wrote:
> On 04/02/10 09:39, chris wrote:
>> From googling it appears those should be able to work with at least
>> 250Gb, so I can't see any hardware restriction.
>
> Looking into things, I get the impression it's a Ghost problem. I've
> restored to the same drive before many times under XP with no problems,
> but never tried it with a larger drive before.

There are OSS alternatives. I've used partimage to copy partitions
before and it works great. I've only done it with Linux partitions, but
it has no restrictions on partition size.
From: alexd on 5 Feb 2010 14:36
Meanwhile, at the uk.comp.os.linux Job Justification Hearings, Nigel Wade
chose the tried and tested strategy of:

> It looks like the HD has a Host Protected Area set (hence the "Hidden
> sectors are present").

> See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_Protected_Area

Fascinating! Well worth watching out for.

--
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DIMENSION-CONTROLLING FORT DOH HAS NOW BEEN DEMOLISHED,
AND TIME STARTED FLOWING REVERSELY

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