MHDD and WD Advanced format drives (4Kb instead of 512b)?

[Turin]

I've got WD15EARS - new drive with so-called '4K' hard drive technology. It's sectors size is 4KB instead of standart 512 bytes. So it has some problems working with old OS and software (like WinXP)
(http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2010/03/10/wd_targets_windows_xp_4k/).

I want to test the surface. Will MHDD work correct with this drive?

[harddrivespecialist]

You should try.

[drc]

The drives emulate 512-byte sectors to the interface, so it should not work differently at all. The only problem with XP and the new WD drives is issues with aligning the FS clusters to the drive sectors. It still works even if its wrong, just at the expense of speed and unnecessary wear and tear on the drive.

[barkingmonkeye]

I use MHDD as my primary hard disk repair tool. I recently acquired some Dell E6420 laptops. they came with the WD 4k advanced format hard drives. MHDD did not work on those drives and now im totally sad in my pants. I have yet to find a program equal to MHDD.

[fzabkar]

I use MHDD as my primary hard disk repair tool. I recently acquired some Dell E6420 laptops. they came with the WD 4k advanced format hard drives. MHDD did not work on those drives ...

If WD's drives are presenting an LBA size of 512 bytes to the host, then it shouldn't matter whether they have 4KB physical sectors.

Have you tried configuring your SATA controller for legacy or IDE compatibility mode in your BIOS?

[barkingmonkeye]

I use MHDD as my primary hard disk repair tool. I recently acquired some Dell E6420 laptops. they came with the WD 4k advanced format hard drives. MHDD did not work on those drives ...

If WD's drives are presenting an LBA size of 512 bytes to the host, then it shouldn't matter whether they have 4KB physical sectors.

Have you tried configuring your SATA controller for legacy or IDE compatibility mode in your BIOS?

From my experience with MHDD, on the dell laptops i support with the 512k format i usually always have to set sata config to ATA / legacy mode or else get the bluescreen 0x7B. I have had some work in the ahci mode, but not all. with the new 4k drives in an E6420 laptop, when i try to boot to MHDD it displays these messages below. I have MHDD on a bootable USB stick which shouldnt matter. I get this message regardless of the SATA config. It boots MHDD to the SCSI selection and it doesnt matter if i pick with or without SCSI i still get the messages below. Maybe its a problem with this E6420, but i havent had much time to troubleshoot.

Windows XMS Driver Version 3.95
Extended memory specification (XMS) Version 3.0
Copyright 1988-1995 Microsoft Corp.

ERROR: Unable to control A20 line!
XMS driver not installed.


Microsoft RAMDrive version 3.06 virtual disk D:
RAMDrive: Extended Memory Manager not present

Warning: the high memory area (HMA) is not available.
Additional low memory (below 640k) will be used instead.
MHDD startup disk could not create a temporary drive for itself.
This happen because this computer has less than 4 MBytes of memory.

Path not found - :\COMMAND.COM

Bad command or file name
Directory already exists
File cannot be copied onto itself

Write protect error writing to drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?_

[barkingmonkeye]

I use MHDD as my primary hard disk repair tool. I recently acquired some Dell E6420 laptops. they came with the WD 4k advanced format hard drives. MHDD did not work on those drives ...

If WD's drives are presenting an LBA size of 512 bytes to the host, then it shouldn't matter whether they have 4KB physical sectors.

Have you tried configuring your SATA controller for legacy or IDE compatibility mode in your BIOS?

There must be a difference with these E6420 from dell. they are the only ones giving me the error, and it doesnt matter which type of drive it is. the error references extended memory so not sure how to fix that unless its hard coded into the MHDD program itself.

[drc]

What was the error? Are you saying that MHDD itself is having an error, and not just that you are having getting the drive to detect/scan?

[barkingmonkeye]

What was the error? Are you saying that MHDD itself is having an error, and not just that you are having getting the drive to detect/scan?

sry the forum moderator had to approve my reply with the error message. here is the error again.


Windows XMS Driver Version 3.95
Extended memory specification (XMS) Version 3.0
Copyright 1988-1995 Microsoft Corp.

ERROR: Unable to control A20 line!
XMS driver not installed.


Microsoft RAMDrive version 3.06 virtual disk D:
RAMDrive: Extended Memory Manager not present

Warning: the high memory area (HMA) is not available.
Additional low memory (below 640k) will be used instead.
MHDD startup disk could not create a temporary drive for itself.
This happen because this computer has less than 4 MBytes of memory.

Path not found - :\COMMAND.COM

Bad command or file name
Directory already exists
File cannot be copied onto itself

Write protect error writing to drive A
Abort, Retry, Fail?_

[Vulcan]

@barkingmonkeye:

Maybe its a problem with this E6420

As you confirmed later, you have now shown it is an issue with the system and not with the drives.

but i havent had much time to troubleshoot.

FYI, the important line in the errors is this one:

Code:

ERROR: Unable to control A20 line!

Other messages are a result of this...

If you search online, you'll see people reporting problems with this same error message on various programs (e.g. Ghost), with new Dell models (laptops & desktops).

I'm not going to do all the research for you (and I couldn't do any testing, even if I did do all the research, as I don't have a Dell ). However if I was in your situation, I would be using "unable to control A20 line" and "dell" as part of the search string into a search engine. Solutions which keep popping up on various pages in my quick search include forcing a specific A20 handler to be used, by using the "/M" switch (for machine type) on himem.sys - just try them all, one at a time, instead of relying on the autodetect mechanism built into himem.sys, which is the default behaviour; or some others report having to use the FreeDOS version of himem.sys (called himemx.sys), as apparently the BIOS in new Dells is said to be so incompatible with older standards (from the time when himem.sys was written) that none of the /M settings from MS-DOS himem.sys will work with some of the new Dell BIOS versions

Good luck!

[barkingmonkeye]

@barkingmonkeye:

Maybe its a problem with this E6420

As you confirmed later, you have now shown it is an issue with the system and not with the drives.

but i havent had much time to troubleshoot.

FYI, the important line in the errors is this one:

Code:

ERROR: Unable to control A20 line!

Other messages are a result of this...

If you search online, you'll see people reporting problems with this same error message on various programs (e.g. Ghost), with new Dell models (laptops & desktops).

I'm not going to do all the research for you (and I couldn't do any testing, even if I did do all the research, as I don't have a Dell ). However if I was in your situation, I would be using "unable to control A20 line" and "dell" as part of the search string into a search engine. Solutions which keep popping up on various pages in my quick search include forcing a specific A20 handler to be used, by using the "/M" switch (for machine type) on himem.sys - just try them all, one at a time, instead of relying on the autodetect mechanism built into himem.sys, which is the default behaviour; or some others report having to use the FreeDOS version of himem.sys (called himemx.sys), as apparently the BIOS in new Dells is said to be so incompatible with older standards (from the time when himem.sys was written) that none of the /M settings from MS-DOS himem.sys will work with some of the new Dell BIOS versions

Good luck!

I will have to look into it, thanks for your time.