Brand new 2TB HDD not what it seems?

[pete_l]

I recently ordered a 2TB Toshiba PA4292E-1HL0 (SATA) from Amazon in Spain. Which is what the box it arrived in said it was. The foil bag refers to the disk as an HDS5C3020BLE630 (also a 2TB disk, but 7200 RPM rather than the 5700 RPM of the Tosh. part). The printed label on the drive itself agrees with that HDS model.

I'm using this to upgrade my Ubuntu 10.10 box, which already contains a 2TB Samsung SATA. However when I installed this drive, the BIOS on my Ubuntu machine and also an old Win XP box both report that this new drive is only 1000GB, not the 2000GB I was expecting. The existing 2TB Samsung is correctly identified as 2000GB.

So, either I'm doing something stupid, there's something subtle with the disk <-> (both) BIOS interaction or the disk hardware doesn't agree with the label. Before I go "nuclear" with Amazon and start accusing them (it's sold by Amazon, not a 3rd party) of selling fake disks, what else is there that I should be checking, please?

[labtech]

MHDD, HDAT, etc.

[hddguy]

all new Toshiba will be rebranded hitachi

Last edited by hddguy on August 15th, 2013, 11:46, edited 1 time in total.

[fzabkar]

Something. possibly your BIOS, has created a Host Protected Area (HPA).

See Q2:
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HD ... y_FAQ.html

To restore the drive's full native capacity, you could use one of the following tools:

http://www.itsecure.at/hparemove-v0-2/
http://www.hdat2.com/
http://hddguru.com/software/2007.07.20- ... tore-Tool/
http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/seatools/ (use the DOS version)

Explanation of Host Protected Area:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area

[Efaill]

Agreed, All new Toshiba 3.5" hardrives are based on Hitatchi technology after Toshiba bought Hitachi's 3.5" bussiness from WD after they bought out HGST.

The disk you bought as the model HDS5C3020BLE630 is certain a 2Tb drive as noted by the HDS5C3020BLE630 and a 7200RPM drive with what Hitachi and now Toshiba class as "CoolSpin" as noted by the 5C in bold HDS5C3020BLE630.

So that seems ok

As for the capacity there is certainly an issue, I suggest going with the above on MHDD to try and quantify if it good at the lowest level.

[pete_l]

Thanks all for taking the time to respond.
Yes, it did appear to be a HPA and HDAT2 got rid of the annoyance for me.
[side note: I wonder how many people have installed HPA'd disks without noticing and are getting much less disk space than they paid for, simply because they didn't notice]

I'm now running my upgraded system Ub 10.10 x86 -> Mint 15 (MATE) i64. Interestingly, I just ran tar -cf - <old home dir> | ( cd <new path> ; tar -xf - ) to move user data across. Then when I fired up the newly installed Firefox it restarted my old sessions right where I left off, i.e. on this page, with all bookmarks and saved passwords preserved - impressive!