Hard disk capacity

[Mitmischer 1703]

Hello!

I found out, that my BIOS crashed after a power cut. It performed a self-repair and went fine afterwards and also indentified my hard disk correctly, but according to the BIOS, there are only about 18 GB capacity - before it have been around 500 GB! The hard disk's parameters are as follows:

Capacity: 17170 MB
Cylinders: 33267
Head: 16
Precomp: 0
Landing Zone: 33265

Are these values correct or is my hard disk broken? Furthermore, I can change them, so if they are wrong, what are the right values?

[pclab]

The BIOS crashed because of a power cut? Not normal....

Try to remove the HD and connect to another computer to see how is recognized.

[Vulcan]

@pclab:

The BIOS crashed because of a power cut? Not normal....

I agree, this is not normal - but I have seen this happen more than once on old PCs, where the CMOS / RTC battery has expired but the PC is left running. Everything will seem to be OK until the next power-cycle / power cut - then the CMOS contents (i.e. BIOS settings) are lost, because that is when the CMOS battery was actually needed.

In this case, I think the OP needs to give more details about the exact disk model. It is quite common that old PCs need the CMOS drive type set to "user defined" and then manually enter the C / H / S settings for the disk. I am sure the OP has an old PC, since they mention that the BIOS has options for "precomp" and "landing zone" which are now obsolete, of course, but go back to the old ST-506 days

@Mitmischer 1703: What is the exact drive make & model? Have you looked on the top of the drive itself - it is common for the correct BIOS disk settings to be shown on the top cover.

P.S. As I explain above, you may have a dying / expired RTC / CMOS backup battery, especially if the PC will not now hold any new BIOS settings which you enter, after you switch off the main power. I suggest you check this.

[Mitmischer 1703]

Yep, the power cut happened on boot^^

@pclab: I tried it on another PC, it's the same game: around 18 GB capacity.

@Vulcan: It's a Hitachi HDS721075KLA330, the only useful information i could find was "LBA: 1.465.149.168 Sectors" - I'm afraid but I don't understand what it's saying.

Those are the values I see on top of the drive - perhaps they are helpful, to me they are not .

P/N W: 0Y30042
S/N: P1GOMESJ
MLC: BA2772
CHS: 16383/16/63

The PC itself is not that old - perhaps around 2 years - but to me it's very weird that the BIOS managed to set the values correctly before - until the power cut.

[Vulcan]

Thanks for that info. Just a quick reply, as I don't have time to do much research for you at the moment...

Finding the correct BIOS settings (even for the HDD) on your specific machine, is really a PC problem, and you may be better using your support route for your PC. However I have an idea what might be happening - although without the PC in front of me, I can't see what options your BIOS has (hence why the PC support route may be better for you).

It could be that your BIOS is set to "CHS" mode for that disk, when it should probably be set to "LBA". I'm wondering if the loss of BIOS settings, has also put that specific setting to the wrong value. Do you have an option in your BIOS (I can't tell you what it would be called - it might be something like "disk geometry") with options CHS, LBA and perhaps LARGE? Do you have an option called something like "IDE auto detect"? If so, have you tried that? Here is a webpage with some examples of the different BIOS options you might have:

http://www.adminxp.com/hardware/index.php?aid=129

Do you have any notes / manuals / etc. about what the original BIOS settings were for your PC? After the power failure, were other BIOS settings also wrong (e.g. date/time etc.), or was the only problem, that the hard disk size was wrongly detected?

to me it's very weird that the BIOS managed to set the values correctly before - until the power cut.

Do you mean that you added that hard disk yourself, and the BIOS detected it correctly after you had installed that disk? Or was that hard disk already installed when you bought the PC originally?

It is worrying that the hard disk is detected with the same, wrong, capacity in another PC - the only way I can see for that to happen, is for that other PC to again have the wrong setting (CHS) for that disk. Otherwise, perhaps this is actually a hard disk problem (e.g. f/w module corruption) caused by the power failure. If so, that would not be a DIY fix for you.

Those are the only ideas I have at the moment...

Edited to add: Is it a Gigabyte motherboard in this system?

[Mitmischer 1703]

First of all, thanks for your reply!

Although my BIOS still does not correctly recognize my drive, I can save it! I did so by booting an ubuntu from CD and ubuntu recognizes my drive correctly, all my files are there (of course, I'm already saving my drive).

It could be that your BIOS is set to "CHS" mode for that disk, when it should probably be set to "LBA". I'm wondering if the loss of BIOS settings, has also put that specific setting to the wrong value. Do you have an option in your BIOS (I can't tell you what it would be called - it might be something like "disk geometry") with options CHS, LBA and perhaps LARGE? Do you have an option called something like "IDE auto detect"?

Yes, I can set the "access mode" to CHS, LBA, LARGE or Auto. When I select Auto, the capacity equals the capacity of CHS mode (in LBA mode it's around 3 MB less capacity, in LARGE mode around 6 MB less). I use the award BIOS, it looks like this

The thrid picture on this page is more or less equal to the settings I have.

If so, have you tried that? Here is a webpage with some examples of the different BIOS options you might have:

http://www.adminxp.com/hardware/index.php?aid=129

Thanks, I am going to visit the page and play a bit with the settings in my BIOS.

Do you have any notes / manuals / etc. about what the original BIOS settings were for your PC? After the power failure, were other BIOS settings also wrong (e.g. date/time etc.), or was the only problem, that the hard disk size was wrongly detected?

I'm afraid, but I did not make any notes on these settings . The hard disk detection was the only problem, the other settings are ok (I guess there has been a factory reset after BIOS-self-repair).

Do you mean that you added that hard disk yourself, and the BIOS detected it correctly after you had installed that disk? Or was that hard disk already installed when you bought the PC originally?

The disk was already installed when I bought the PC, but the settings were not set up manually.

It is worrying that the hard disk is detected with the same, wrong, capacity in another PC - the only way I can see for that to happen, is for that other PC to again have the wrong setting (CHS) for that disk. Otherwise, perhaps this is actually a hard disk problem (e.g. f/w module corruption) caused by the power failure. If so, that would not be a DIY fix for you.

That's making me worried as well. But as ubuntu is able to read the disk, I hope, it's alright and I can perhaps ignore the wrong BIOS-detection. After having saved my files, I will try to re-install windows and tell you whether it worked or not.

Edited to add: Is it a Gigabyte motherboard in this system?

Yes, indeed! Might there be a problem with the BIOS? Shall I flash it?

[Mitmischer 1703]

My reply has not been published yet, but for me it's taking way to long, so I will now answer the central question of your post: Yes, it's a GIGABYTE board!

[Vulcan]

My reply is not here yet, but for me it's taking way to long, so I will now answer the central question of your post: Yes, it's a GIGABYTE board!

Your previous comment is probably delayed, waiting for "moderation" (e.g. if it includes images or links etc.) due to you being a new member... When it has been "released", it will appear in this thread, somewhere above this...

Thanks for that answer about the Gigabyte motherboard. As I said before, motherboards & PCs are not usual topics here - but I asked you that question, because I remembered some other members had mentioned a Gigabyte BIOS bug, which caused the BIOS to sometimes reduce the reported disk capacity (by setting an HPA [Host Protected Area] on the disk). This BIOS bug may also have overwritten some of the data on the disk, if you have suffered this, and if the BIOS wrote itself into the HPA.

Here are some of the previous threads on this board which talk about that BIOS problem, so I suggest you research your motherboard and BIOS versions, to see if the same bug applies to yours:

lost-partition-hitachi-1gb-hdt721010sla360-t15662.html
1tb-western-digital-32mb-capacity-t16396.html
hdd-capacity-restore-tool-not-seeing-sata-drive-t15877.html

You can use utilities like MHDD or HDAT2 to confirm whether an HPA has been set on the disk, as described in those links above. Good luck!

[Vulcan]

Your earlier update has now appeared, thanks for that helpful info. As I mentioned before, I expect it was delayed in "moderation" due to the (helpful) links which you included, and the moderators wanted to check that they were not links to spam sites etc.

Although my BIOS still does not correctly recognize my drive, I can save it! I did so by booting an ubuntu from CD and ubuntu recognizes my drive correctly, all my files are there (of course, I'm already saving my drive).

That is great news However, as I mentioned a short while ago, if you have been affected by the Gigabyte BIOS bug, it might have overwritten some files at high LBA numbers.

From all your new info, it is now clear to me that your BIOS should correctly recognise that disk, and CHS/LBA detection seems less likely to me as the problem, since Auto does not work as it should. Also it is interesting that the hard disk detection was the only BIOS problem after the power-cut. This might point away from general CMOS battery type problems, and more towards the BIOS bug which I mentioned.

So in summary, with the extra info you have given, your symptoms look more and more like the BIOS problem I described a short while ago. When your files are safely copied onto another disk, I suggest to check for the presence of an HPA (before trying to re-install Windows etc. - you might not need to do that), as described in the threads which I linked in my previous reply.

Glad you got your data!

[Mitmischer 1703]

Thanks! Your tip was absolutely correct!

The short version: I got my data and my drive got it's capacity back!

The long version (it's really long, so you should have much time, if you read this^^):

After I copied over my files via ubuntu, I tried to change disk geometry and make my BIOS recognize the disk, but it was "the same old story" my BIOS told me... Then I saw your post; That's why, I decided to install Windows 7, but the installation program did not recognize my disk, so I grabbed a console and typed format C: . It changed absolutely nothing, except that even my ubuntu only saw a disk with a capacity of 17 GB instead of 750 GB - I thought that was my final mistake, but I did not give up! After installing ubuntu, my windows suddenly recognized my disk and I took my chance and installed it. (I starred long enough at the hint saying "low disk space" - it just disappeared! ). Now that I got windows finally installed, I installed HDD Capacity Restore Tool, said my prayers, ran it - a little window popped up and told me, that it "could not open driver". I googled "HDD Capacity Restore Windows 7" and found people with the same problem. I grabbed my disk, went to my brother's PC, connected my drive to his mainboard, ran the tool on his PC and it broke off again! Although it did not make any sense, it told me, that the same channel was used. Looking at the fact, that both had their own cable (no master-slave-rigmarole), I did not understand the message, must have been a bug. After that, I wanted to repeat the whole on my mainboard, but I already failed on logon screen as neither keyboard nor mouse were working. Now I was desperate enough to install Windows XP on my drive, but after loading the installation file, my screen went blue - bluescreen in module pci.sys. Afraid that the power cut had possibly wrecked more than I thought, I ran a stresstest while I went to a driving lesson. On return, I quit it as till there everything was alright. Once again, I googled, this time for "Windows XP pci.sys" and i found this. It saved my day! Now, XP was up and running and expectant, I ran the HDD Capacity Restore Tool and finally, my Odyssey was over. It restored my drive to full capacity and now, I am sitting here with a freshly installed smoothly running Windows 7 and I enjoy it - still!

Thank you very much for your help!!!

Mitmischer 1703

[Vulcan]

Thanks for your update - that is great news and congratulations on fixing those extra difficulties during the whole process!

To try to avoid this happening again, check for BIOS updates to your Gigabyte board. I hope they have a version which fixes that bug. And remember to make backups of your data, just in case of worse disk problems in future

MfG...