Cilpped drives

[ZUES]

Is there a way to unclip a drive?

[Vulcan]

Depends exactly what you mean by "clipped". Some people use that word, when they actually mean a drive which has reduced capacity due to an OEM version of firmware. The answer is different in that case.

More details needed e.g. drive make, model & firmware version, and provide some output (GUI or CLI) showing whatever makes you think the drive has been "clipped". There may be more questions, depending on what that initial data shows.

Also, what is the history to this situation e.g. is it your drive?; is it working OK or is there some kind of problem with its behaviour?; what tests / research have you done already, what were the results, and what conclusions have you made based on those results?

[fzabkar]

Check for the presence of capacity limiting jumpers.

If there is a HPA (Host Protected Area), try one or more of the following tools:

http://www.itsecure.at/hparemove-v0-2/
http://www.hdat2.com/
http://hddguru.com/software/2007.07.20- ... tore-Tool/

If it's a Seagate drive, then you could also try SeaTools for DOS.
http://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/do ... os-master/

For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area

Depending on the reason for the clipping, the following may also help:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HD ... y_FAQ.html

[ZUES]

The drive is an Hitachi 2TB, FW:JKA0A3GF, Model:HUA72020ALA330
I work for a company that buys and sells used drives and we ended up with 100 of these 2TB drives that only show up as 1TB, so that is why I am hoping to get them back to factory size, if you have any idea, I would be greatful.

[Vulcan]

Thanks for the info. Personally I would start with HDAT2 (linked by fzabkar earlier) and check in its "Hidden Areas" menu to see whether either HPA or DCO is reported for one of these drives, before trying removal utilities.

[fzabkar]

Just curious. Are you testing these on a Gigabyte motherboard with an Xpress Recovery BIOS? If so, then see Q2 in my Capacity FAQ. In any case, I would scan at least one drive for BIOS related text strings, especially near the end of the 1TB and 2TB areas. This would confirm whether they were truncated by the BIOS bug. That said, I expect that Vulcan is probably right, though.