Hi all

I have 2 HDDs Hitachi 1GB HDT721010SLA360 in PC under W7 and sudenly, one of them has lost partition: Windows ask me if I want to partition it! After several investigations:
1/ size reported is now 33MB instead of 1Tb

2/ I tried "Partion Find and Mount" avaib on this site and he's unable to find any partition (whatever the scan method used)

3/ I tried HDD Capacity Restore:
Reported Capacity : 33NB
Factory Capacity: 100,204MB
Capacity Difference: 100,171MB
I have not click on Restore Capacity yet: I would like to understand impact before writing anything on my drive

4/ I ran GetDataBack NTFS. Surprisingly, he also say it's a 33MB drive, but when clicking on the disk, it says there is a 936MB NTFS Partition. Then I run a full scan but it does not find any single file or directory it could recover !!!

5/ I copy there infos from HDDScan 3.1:

Model: Hitachi HDT721010SLA360
Firmware: ST6OA3AA
Serial: STF607MH3VWTGK
LBA: 65134

Report By: HDDScan for Windows version 3.1
Report Date: 04/05/2010 18:44:59

Main Information
Name Value
LBA Support Yes
LBA28 65134
LBA48 65134
ATA Version 8
Logical Sector Size 512 bytes
Physical Sector Size 512 bytes
Cache size 15001 KB
ECC bytes 56
Nominal Form factor Not Reported
RPM 7200
Interface SATA
Connected through PCI controller

DMA Support:
Name Value
DMA Support Yes
Multiword DMA 0 Supported
Multiword DMA 1 Supported
Multiword DMA 2 Supported
UDMA 0 Supported
UDMA 1 Supported
UDMA 2 Supported
UDMA 3 Supported
UDMA 4 Supported
UDMA 5 Supported
UDMA 6 Selected

PIO Support
Name Value
PIO Support Yes
PIO 0 Supported
PIO 1 Supported
PIO 2 Supported
PIO 3 Supported
PIO 4 Supported

Features Support
Name Value
SATA Gen2 3.0 Gb/s Supported
SATA Gen1 1.5 Gb/s Supported
Software Settings Preservation Enabled
Commands queue Supported
Queue depth 32
NCQ Supported
TCQ Not Supported
Host Protected Area (HPA) Supported
Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) Enabled
Advanced Power Management (APM) Supported
Power Management Supported
Read look-ahead Enabled
Write cache Enabled
Password Protection Supported
SMART Enabled
Device Configuration Overlay (DCO) Supported
General Purpose Logging (GPL) Supported
Streaming feature Supported
SMART self-test Supported
SMART error log Supported
SCT Command Transport Supported
SCT Long Sector Access Not Supported
SCT Write Same Supported
SCT Error Recovery Control Supported
SCT Features Control Supported
SCT Data Tables Supported

6/ If I run HDDScan on my second disk which is running well; I have only hte following differences:
Name Value
LBA Support Yes
LBA28 268435455
LBA48 1953523055
In other words, the LBA reported (both 28 and 48) are different, which I guess explain the size reported (33Mb versus 1TB)

I am quite sceptical. The strange thing is that GetDataback seems to see the partition but is not able to get any file. HDD capacity restore could fix the size, but then what about the partition? Do I have any chance to recover it?
And why my HDD would have suddenly change his size?

Any help or suggestion for further investigations would be welcome.
Thanks

This could be an issue with PW on this disk. Stop doing all of this. You should clone your disk first. Right now if you stop this can be handled very simply by a professional for very little money. If you continue you risk change of data loss on this one. It can not hurt to ask a professional to look at this one and advise you if this is actually a PW locking your disk data out. He can see what your problem is and give you an estimate on how to go. If you like please contact pcimage - Sean here he can help you out on this one if you stop now doing what you are doing.

_________________
Iorana Haraharaini

I would say the drive firmware etc has got corrupted/failed in a way that make the drive report as a simple 33million byte drive (32 true MB)

Vaguely similar to the Segate LBA 0 issue

Very small chance something may have set the max LBA setting on the drive
MHDD and some other utilities should be able to tell you if this is set
but dont suggest trying to undo it till anyone else has commented on this


Sounds like GetDataBack NTFS reads the partition table (on sector 0) and tells you it sees a partition table records for a 936MB partition there
However since the drive wont let you read beyond 32MB your never going to get at it

The one good thing is it sounds like the first sector (and maybe the first 32MB's worth of sectors?) are reading ok
And you data is probably still all there and ok, if you could 'fix' the drive to make it recognise its proper camapcity


How to fix it ? I'll let others commemt on that, but sounds like it needs the attention of a DR professional

Ok. As I have 2 other same drive, should I try to change PCB? In this case, when you turn on a drive with a new PCB, is there any data written on the disk ? (that could then potentially damage the drive ?) In other word, is this PCB change non destructive for the data on the disk?

Regarding the difference between my disks, I also found in fact they are running different firmware.

The faulty disk is running ST6OA3AA, while my 2 other same disks (yes, in fact I have a total of 3!) running well for the time being have a firmware ST6OA31B.
The third disk is reporting different LBA, but very close from to other clean disk: LBA28 268435455 , LBA48 1953525168

Will run MHDD to see what it does find.

Thanks

These PCBs have FW that is unique to the drive

Try the capacity restore, the worst it can do is not work

_________________
You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Many people seem not to know belgium is closer to france than UK AND we speak french

Dobre

_________________
Murphy was an optimist

Hum, HDDGuru est un site Belge? Je ne savais pas. N'y a t il pas plus de chance d'avoir une réponse si le post est en Anglais?
Merci

No, hddguru is not a belgian site.
Indeed best to post in english, its the common language on the forum.

Dobre

_________________
Murphy was an optimist

Do you have a Gigabyte motherboard with Xpress Recovery BIOS?

If so, then the BIOS has truncated the drive after backing up a copy of itself to a small HPA (approximately 2000 sectors) at the top end of the drive.

GDB is detecting the correct partition size from the partition table in sector 0.

The reason the drive is reporting 33MB is that Gigabyte's BIOS has a bug that incorrectly adjusts the drive's capacity after creating the HPA. 1TB drives are reduced to 33MB, 1.5TB become 500GB, and 2TB become 1TB.

The solution is to use a tool such as HDAT2 or the HDD Capacity Restore Tool to remove the HPA (Host Protected Area).

I would also update the BIOS afterwards.

Very interesting .. the bios setup an HPA

Thanks. Yes, I have a "old" Gygabyte GA-K8N-SLI. I think I have latest BIOS, issue is that I am not sure they are updating BIOS anymore. I will check. I have additional questions:
1/ when you say "BIOS has truncated the drive after backing up a copy of itself to a small HPA", do you mean NIOS has made a backup of the BIOS itself on the disk?
2/ why suddenly my MB has done this change after 6 month of use with no pb?
3/ should I worry for my second Hitachi drive on the same MB? How to prevent this apart from BIOS update (if possible)
4/ if I remove HPA with HDD Capacity Restore or HDAT2, should I recover all my files? If not, what is the next step?

Thanks for your help

Let me first say that I have not had an opportunity to investigate this bug for myself.

However, my understanding is that BIOS writes a copy of itself to the uppermost LBAs of the drive, and then hides this image by reducing the capacity of the drive by a corresponding amount.

This article explains the Host Protected Area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area

I don't know how or when the BIOS decides to do the above, but I presume that your affected drive was somehow promoted to the first device in the boot order. Either you did this intentionally, or maybe the first drive disappeared as a consequence of some fault.

Removing the HPA should not damage your file system. However, if the BIOS did manage to write to the drive, then the BIOS image must now be somewhere within the user area. I would use a disc editor to examine some likely locations.

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

For example, I would first examine the very last LBA on the drive. AIUI, in an NTFS volume this sector should contain a copy of the NTFS boot sector. Alternatively, depending on the OS, this copy may be in the middle of the volume. I'm assuming that partitions don't end on cylinder boundaries, in which case the above may not apply. In any case, you should be able to recognise BIOS code because the tail end of the image (last 16 bytes) will contain some uncompressed boot code, including a plain text BIOS ID.

BTW, the specs for your motherboard confirm the existance of an Xpress Recovery BIOS:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Products/Mot ... GA-K8N-SLI

The latest BIOS version (F10E) is dated 2009/12/17:
http://www.gigabyte.com.tw/Support/Moth ... uctID=1928

Here are some text strings I have extracted from the K8NSLI.10E image file in the above distribution:

"Award BootBlock BIOS v1.0"

"Can not Find BIOS Image in Hard Drive or Diskette"

"6A61FG0I"

You could scan your drive for the above strings.

If you find them, then you should determine which files, if any, occupy the affected sectors.

Tip: How to determine which file occupies a particular sector:
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/ATA-and-Se ... /m-p/35567

[/quote]

Hum, will try to summarize to check I have understand.

I first remove HPA by using HDD Size Revover. Thus, my disk will be seen again as 1Tb by BIOS and by Windows.
Now, will Windows find my old partition? What do I need if not?

Then, you suggest to search on the disk the location where the BIOS has made the backup to see which file has been overwrite as you suspect it has been done in my user area (instead of the very end of the disk). Correct ?

What is not clear: when using HxD, I will find the BIOS Backup on the disk and hs location: but how to find which of my file has been overwritten?

Thanks

ok. I have run HDD Capacity Restore and have recover all my files!

I know have to locate the BIOS backup on the disk to find which file(s) may have been corrupted.

Will check the bios for update but I wonder the last one (F10) is a beta BIOS!

An other point I mentioned above: the faulty disk is running firmware ST6OA3AA, while my 2 other same disks running well for the time being have a firmware ST6OA31B.

So my next question would be: should I update the firmware? How can I do that? (I did ot find a site with Hitachi firmware)

Thanks again for your help

I'm not a DR guy, so your HDD firmware questions would best be addressed to them. However, my understanding is that firmware is not generally released to the field unless it addresses a critical issue.

Well thank you so much, fzabkar, i had the same issue with my Seagate 1TB ST31000528AS HDD.
I connected it to a Gigabyte board, after which it showed up as a 32 mb RAW disk in Windows.

However, after using HDD Capacity Restore, my HDD started showing 1tb in BIOS, but in Windows it would not show up in explorer, and in Disk Management it showed as '' Not Initialized''.

I was then able to recover my important data.

I need to ask you
1) is there any way by which i can now make it appear in explorer, without having to format it ?
2) if i initialize it in Disk Management, will it lead to data loss ?

Sometimes, the disk management does not start up and closes with a error message.

ajes92, I would not initialise or write to the drive without first examining it. How you go about repairing your file system depends on what you did to the drive after its capacity was reduced.

I suggest you upload the contents of sector 0 (MBR and partition table) and sector 63 (first boot sector).

Could we see the partition table and boot sector with Microsoft's Sector Inspector?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt.

You could also use a hex editor.

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Launch HxD. Select Extras -> Open disk -> Select your physical disk and uncheck "Open as readonly". You should now see Sector 0.

To backup track 0 plus the boot sector, you need to select Edit -> Select Block. Select the hex radio button and then set Start Offset = 0, and Length = 8000. This should highlight the contents of the first 64 sectors. Now select File -> Export -> Editor view. Upload the saved text file.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Hi gus,

i have a 1tb WD HD and it has the same problem.
i tried to read and understand your post above, but they are half gibberish to us
not so familiar with technicalities.

could you please simplify the steps i need to take to safely recover my data so i can
burn it onto dvds.

fzabkar, ?

zakster, run Sector Inspector, then upload the SIout.txt file.

BTW, when you say you have the "same problem", what exactly do you mean? Are you saying that your drive's capacity has been truncated?

FYI, I'm a regular poster to HDD Guru, but I don't live here.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.