3TB Hitachi Deskstar 7K3000 shows as uninitialised.

[ReclaiMe]

fzabkar,

Something to do with logical sector size, on hard drive and on the JBOD?
The drive model HDS723030ALA640 is supposed to be 512 bytes per sector.
The other one don't know.

meson1,
What's the exact model for the Seagate?

[meson1]

@DataPlanet
I understand what RAID is and I have a rough understanding of what the various RAID levels are. But these disks were not part of a multiple device RAID array. I was just using the RAID card as a glorified SATA controller by using two separate JBOD 'arrays' with a single physical device in each one. I did this on purpose to minimise any possible future portability issues; I didn't want these two drives to be dependant on each other by coupling them together in a conventional RAID array or by making them both part of a single spanned JBOD volume.

But thank you anyway.

@ReclaiMe
I'm at work so I don't have those details to hand. When I get home later, I can post specific information like model numbers and what have you.

[meson1]

Here is all the info about the Seagate drive, transcribed by hand from R-Studio:

Code:

Drive Type:             Physical Drive,Disk
Name:                   ST3000DM001-9YN166CC4C
OS Object:              \\.\PhysicalDrive0
R-Studio Driver:        WinNT\Handle\Physical
Size:                   2.73 TB
Sector Size:            512 Bytes
Partition Size:         2.73TB

Drive Control
   Maximum Transfer:    128 KB
   I/O Unit:            512 Bytes
   Buffer Alignment:    4 Bytes

Physical Drive Geometry
   Cylinders:           364801
   Tracks Per Cylinder: 255
   Sectors Per Track:   63
   Sector Size:         512 Bytes

Device Identification
   Product:             ST3000DM001-9YN166
   Firmware:            CC4C
   Serial Number:       W1F077V2

SCSI Address
   Port Number:         1
   Path Id:             1
   Target Id:           0
   Lun:                 0
   Bus Type:            SerialATA-II

IDE Properties
   ECC Bytes:           4
   PIO Modes:           1,2,3,4
   DMA Modes:           0,1,2
   UltraDMA Modes:      0,1,2,3,4,5,6
   Current Mode:        UltraDMA 6

Device/Disk                      Label          FS               Start     Size
ST3000DM001-9YN166CC4C           W1F077V2       #0 SATA2 (1:0)   0 Bytes   2.73 TB
   Microsoft reserved partition                                  17 KB     128 MB
   J:                            SEAG3000GB-1   NTFS             129 MB    2.73 TB
   Empty Space34                                                 2.73 TB   85.44 MB

[ReclaiMe]

ST3000DM001 is 4096 bytes per sector.

So, my bet there was something fishy with the way the controller handled sector size translations. Perhaps JBODs were using 4096 bytes per sector, and once the drives were connected without the controller, the one which natively used 4096 bytes per sector was no change, but the one which reverted to its native 512 bytes per sector, which broke partition tables and all that.

[meson1]

ST3000DM001 is 4096 bytes per sector.

So, my bet there was something fishy with the way the controller handled sector size translations. Perhaps JBODs were using 4096 bytes per sector, and once the drives were connected without the controller, the one which natively used 4096 bytes per sector was no change, but the one which reverted to its native 512 bytes per sector, which broke partition tables and all that.

Except it was the Hitachi that didn't work and it's the Seagate that appears to be fine.

[ReclaiMe]

meson1,

Tha's perfectly correct.

Hitachi 512 bytes per sector
Seagate 4096 bytes per sector
JBOD perhaps 4096 bytes per sector with both drives.

JBOD dismantled, Seagate no change, Hitachi changes sector size.

[meson1]

Well, I've recovered all the data off the Seagate drive even though it appears to be good. I guess I am now safest to reinitialise and reformat the Seagate. Unless you guys want any further information to try diagnosing this puzzle.

I might take the opportunity to flash the Seagate with up to date firmware. I believe that will fix the inverted busy light; it does show the busy LED when idle.

[ReclaiMe]

I suppose if we check GPT signature ("EFI PART") would be at 4096 bytes from start of the Hitachi (failed one). That would confirm wrong sector size. You may check it with WinHex.

[meson1]

I'm afraid I reinitialised and reformatted the Hitachi a couple of days ago after I recovered all the data. Of course, in doing so I wiped out the evidence. It does make identifying a root cause somewhat difficult But I wasn't anticipating all these questions; I was just set on fixing it all and getting my disks and data back up and running.

The only thing I remember about it is that R-Studio showed it having three partitions on it.

• GPTpart2 ???MB
• Microsoft reserved partition ???MB
• Data partition 3TB-ish

The ???MB above merely means I don't remember what those sizes were. I did not make a note of any details.

I have no intention of putting that RAID card back in my machine. I don't trust that it is not damaged in some way and even if I could get my box to boot with it in, I don't want to entrust my data to it any more. Also, because it's no longer in there, it speeds up my boot process.