Hello everyone,

This issue is in regard to a Samsung Spinpoint P120 (SP2514N) 250Gb HDD which is recognised in my PC BIOS with only 33GB.

A few months ago I created a hidden Truecrypt partition on this drive, since then I had some health issues, in hospital etc and lost the password; it is irretrievable and I have no other backup info anywhere. I recently attempted to access the entire drive for formatting.

The drive is now recognised by my PC bios as 33GB. I have tried Partition Magic and removed a "Type 7" partition along with the 33GB Windows partition so now the drive reports as an empty 33GB HDD. I found advice about a utility called "HDD Capacity Restore". I ran this utility and it correctly recognised the drive's reported size (33GB) and the actual size (250GB). I used it to try and reset the drive and HDD Capacity Restore reported it had successfully reset the drive. But on reboot it hadn't worked (I have tried this three times) and the drive remains at 33GB.

Image of the HDD Capacity Restore software report here.. http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/2343/hddg.jpg and here... http://img138.imageshack.us/img138/8938/hdd1d.jpg

And in Windows Device Manager, it now looks like this... http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/4889/ddmq.jpg

I have also tried all of the available Samsung utilities including: HUITIL, SUTIL, SHDISG and ESTOOL.. I have reset the UDMA to UDMA100 (Mode 5) and attempted the following LBA setting...

Drive reported LBA: Drive Size: (33GB) LBA: 66055246

Drive reset to LBA: DRIVE SIZE: 23844475MB (LBA: 488 397 168)

Samsung utility reported the change as successful but on reboot there was no change and the drive is still 33GB.

Attempted a Low Level Format (LBA: 488 397 168) and when the process reaches the 66055246 LBA point it the utility quits with message: "Sector ID Not Found"

I just want to restore the drive back to it's original capacity. Can anyone help with a method to restore the drive back to its original 250GB size please? Any comments or if anyone can advise me I would be truly grateful.

Kind Regards,
Mike.

Have you installed the capacity limitation jumper (Kapazitätsbegrenzung)?
http://www.produktinfo.conrad.de/datenb ... P2514N.pdf

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Recheck jumper pin settings . Did you set it as slave ?

_________________
Angel Data Recovery

By the way, if you need get data back from that truecrypt'ed partition , don't do any format and any write on to disk, if not already too late.
Without password you have very small chances, how many symbols it has?

_________________
Angel Data Recovery

Kapazitätsgrenze ist nicht gesetzt!

The HDD jumper is set correctly I have not set any limitation; also the drive is the same regardless of being set as Slave or Master, I can't see what difference that would make.

I just want to restore the drive back to it's original capacity, any help appreciated.

Regards,
Mike.

Check limit capacity pinouts for short with multimeter.

_________________
Angel Data Recovery

If not, realize that a firmware failure CAN happen.

I'm not really confident in electronics so unable to carry out this test, however in answer to this idea and the following comment...



15 years of experience has taught me that "coincidence" is rare with computer faults. Do you really consider a fault has occurred on a perfectly healthy, functioning HDD at the precise same moment I deleted a "type 7" partition which left a part of the drive (which is precisely the same size), unreadable?

I don't think there is any electrical or firmware fault, however a firmware update might be an idea so I will research that possibility. It seems to me that something has overridden the firmware or some area of the drive with the lower capacity setting. I am sure I read somewhere that Truecrypt can do this but now cannot find the article.

"Drive reported LBA: Drive Size: (33GB) LBA: 66055246"

66055246 equates to 0x3EFEC4E in hexadecimal which is not quite 32GB (0x4000000), so maybe a hardware capacity limit is not the issue.

I'm wondering whether the MBR code in sector 0 truncates your drive at every bootup. This is what happens when you clone a 33GB Dell laptop drive, with a Media Direct partition, to a larger capacity drive.

If the above is your problem, then the solution is to replace the MBR code with Microsoft's standard code using FIXMBR. However, before you do that, I would use a disc editor to view LBA 0 and LBA 3.

HxD - Freeware Hex Editor and Disk Editor:
http://mh-nexus.de/en/hxd/

Alternatively, could we see the partition table and boot sector with Microsoft's Sector Inspector?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

Extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file. The procedure will generate a report file named SIout.txt.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Firmware faults happen anytime anywhere : working drives that become unusable after turning off then on are common. If there is no hw limit and the drive is seen BY BIOS as 32 Gb there's an internal problem. To confirm, try MHDD. Can you erase it and scan successfully - YOU WILL LOOSE ALL DATA ON IT (IT SEEMS THAT YOU ARE TRYING TO REUSE THE DRIVE SO DATA IS NOT IMPORTANT, otherwise DON'T DO IT !) or even ID (F2) show about 64M lba blocks and 32 G? Is HPA on ?

Hi fzabkar, thanks for your interest, SecInspect log for the drive in question...

===========================================================================
Target - \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1
4111 Cylinders
255 Heads
63 Sectors Per Track
512 BytesPerSector
12 MediaType

===========================================================================
Master Boot Record
===========================================================================
| B | FS TYPE | START | END | | |
| F | (hex) | C H S| C H S| RELATIVE | TOTAL |
===========================================================================
| | 00 | 0 0 0| 0 0 0| 0| 0|
| | 00 | 0 0 0| 0 0 0| 0| 0|
| | 00 | 0 0 0| 0 0 0| 0| 0|
| | 00 | 0 0 0| 0 0 0| 0| 0|
===========================================================================
Disk Signature 0x0c490c49



LBN 0 [C 0, H 0, S 1]

0x0000 fa 33 c0 8e d0 bc 00 7c-8b f4 50 07 50 1f fb fc ú3ÀŽÐ¼.|‹ôP.Pûü
0x0010 bf 00 06 b9 00 01 f2 a5-ea 1d 06 00 00 be be 07 ¿..¹..ò¥ê...¾¾.
0x0020 b3 04 80 3c 80 74 0e 80-3c 00 75 1c 83 c6 10 fe ³.€<€t.€<.uƒÆþ
0x0030 cb 75 ef cd 18 8b 14 8b-4c 02 8b ee 83 c6 10 fe ËuïÍ‹‹L.‹îƒÆþ
0x0040 cb 74 1a 80 3c 00 74 f4-be f8 06 ac 3c 00 74 0b Ët€<.tô¾ø.¬<.t.
0x0050 56 bb 07 00 b4 0e cd 10-5e eb f0 eb fe bf 05 00 V»..´.Í^ëðëþ¿..
0x0060 60 6a 00 6a 00 ff 76 0a-ff 76 08 6a 00 68 00 7c `j.j.ÿv.ÿv.j.h.|
0x0070 6a 01 6a 10 b4 42 b2 80-8b f4 cd 13 61 61 73 0c j.j´B²€‹ôÍaas.
0x0080 33 c0 cd 13 4f 75 d9 be-f8 06 eb bf be f8 06 bf 3ÀÍOuÙ¾ø.뿾ø.¿
0x0090 fe 7d 81 3d 55 aa 75 b3-bf 52 7c 81 3d 46 41 75 þ}=Uªu³¿R|=FAu
0x00a0 07 47 47 80 3d 54 74 11-bf 03 7c 81 3d 4e 54 75 .GG€=Tt¿.|=NTu
0x00b0 40 47 47 81 3d 46 53 75-38 60 b4 08 b2 80 cd 13 @GG=FSu8`´.²€Í
0x00c0 bf 1a 7c fe c6 8a d6 32-f6 89 15 4f 4f 83 e1 3f ¿|þÆŠÖ2ö‰OOƒá?
0x00d0 89 0d 61 60 6a 00 6a 00-ff 76 0a ff 76 08 6a 00 ‰.a`j.j.ÿv.ÿv.j.
0x00e0 68 00 7c 6a 01 6a 10 b4-43 b2 80 8b f4 cd 13 61 h.|j.j´C²€‹ôÍa
0x00f0 61 8b f5 ea 00 7c 00 00-45 72 72 6f 72 21 00 44 a‹õê.|..Error!.D
0x0100 32 31 30 41 36 31 35 2d-41 43 46 44 2d 34 31 34 210A615-ACFD-414
0x0110 61 2d 42 44 46 31 2d 46-43 39 46 32 41 38 35 46 a-BDF1-FC9F2A85F
0x0120 30 37 36 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 076.............
0x0130 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x0140 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x0150 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x0160 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x0170 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x0180 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x0190 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x01a0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x01b0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-49 0c 49 0c 00 00 00 00 ........I.I.....
0x01c0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x01d0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x01e0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 ................
0x01f0 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00-00 00 00 00 00 00 55 aa ..............Uª
________________________________________________________________________________________

Regards,
Mike.

Ok, I have tried FIXMBR and it is still the same; also installed HxD but I haven't a clue what I'm looking at.

If this post comes through first I have also posted the SecInspect SIout.txt log for the drive which should appear when the Mods approve it.

Sincerely,
Mike.

FIXMBR on its own won't restore the drive's full capacity. You still need to apply the HDD Capacity Restore Tool once more. FIXMBR only replaces any non-standard MBR code with Microsoft's code. This prevents the drive being truncated again at the next reboot, assuming that's the problem.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

Ok, tried that, here's the drive now...

http://img593.imageshack.us/img593/8785/samsung250t.jpg

If your problem drive is not the boot drive, then its MBR code would not have been executed. So this can't have been the reason that your drive was truncated after a reboot.

When you say that "here's the drive now", do you mean that it retained its 250GB capacity after a reboot? Or do you mean that this is the status of the drive after applying the HDD Capacity Restore Tool, and before a reboot?

Have you tried a surface scan of the drive in its present state?

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I was perhaps not being completely clear and should have added a few of these to my post...

...................................................................................

The "boot drive" position isn't an issue, I must move the drive to the primary position in order to execute FIXMBR and then to a second IDE channel to use HDD Capacity Restore from within XP on my main system drive.

The drive is now fixed and working at full capacity. Your solution to use Microsoft FIXMBR and then HDD Capacity Restore utility worked and restored its original size. On reboot the drive then appeared at full capacity.

So, thank you to all those who tried to help with this issue, I appreciate your time and efforts. And particular thanks to you fzabkar, you fixed it so thank you!

Best regards,
Mike.

That's definitely non-Microsoft MBR code.

This article discusses a standard MS Win2K / XP MBR:
http://mirror.href.com/thestarman/asm/mbr/Win2kmbr.htm

FWIW, I found your MBR code here:
http://www.diskusjon.no/index.php?app=c ... _id=341967

In the above case the drive was partitioned with partitions of type 0xFD. According to the following URL, type 0xFD is a "Linux raid partition with autodetect using persistent superblock".

List of partition identifiers for PCs:
http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/p ... pes-1.html

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I've used Linux in the past to help with HDD problems so yes I did attempt to resurrect the drive by using Ubuntu, but this was after the drive had already shown the reduced capacity.

The drive is now fixed and working perfectly and I have already posted more details about how this was resolved with a thank you for your help. Presumably my post is floating somewhere around the Mod's interception software, hopefully it'll arrive here soon.

Best regards,
Mike.

I'm wondering whether the MBR code was TrueCrypt's boot code, in which case the truncation of the drive may be some kind of security measure ???

Congratulations, BTW.

_________________
A backup a day keeps DR away.

I'm inclined to believe that is the case.

From Truecrypt's help file.. "the first drive track contains the (unencrypted) TrueCrypt Boot Loader" and I've read somewhere in more in depth, details about changes to MBR etc.

Thanks again,
Mike.