Hi everybody,
By using a disk cloning tool, I copied the partitions from my old 100G Dell laptop drive to a new 320G WD drive. After cloning and inserting in the laptop the bios correctly read it as a 320G HD, but after I tried to boot windows 1st time, it got changed to a 100G drive. Dell had some sort of startup code to fix the drive size... I guess as part of their mass production assembly line. Bios, disk tools, partition tools, Windows Disk Mgmt etc. all see it now as a 100G drive.

Since then I've struggled to find a way to get all my drive space back.

MHDD is coming very close. It sees that the LBA has been changed downward from the correct value of 625,142,448 sectors to something in the 192,000,000 range. So finally, at least I know what the problem is. I verified the 625 number on the WD site... that's right.

However MHDD aborts with error when I try to use the HPA or NHPA commands. I've written to the control card, to the primary port, disabled bios, reset power to the drive before issuing the commands. Results: FAIL. Scan, Erase and all other commands work ok.

The status indicators in MHDD for HPA commands are: ERR DRSC DRDY HPA ABRT

Is there any way to get around this? (Can an max LBA setting get "locked" preventing further change).

Seems I'm so close...

THanks in advance for your ideas and suggestions.

@dondec:

If MHDD is reporting that an HPA has been set, that would fit with the symptoms you describe.

It is normal that you can't reset an HPA on the drive which you have booted from, which is obviously a typical situation for a laptop (except those rare models which have 2 internal hard disks). You can't clear an HPA via a USB connection.

Therefore you would need to get your drive installed into a disktop system as an additional drive, if you are going to try DIY to remove the HPA. If I was in this situation, I would then try the free HDD Capacity Restore from the owner of this forum, also read the webpage and comments on the second link:

http://hddguru.com/software/2007.07.20- ... tore-Tool/
http://blog.atola.com/restoring-factory ... -capacity/

Note: I have no exprience with Dell laptops to explain why this happened, nor to prevent it happening again. Use the program above at your own risk

Special Dell boot code sets an HPA where it is expecting to find the MediaDirect partition. You can stop this behavior by zeroing LBA 3, and you will have to remove the HPA manually. As long as the Dell code exists in LBA 3 it will re-HPA the drive each time it boots.

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

Thank you Vulcan and drc for your comments.

@Vulcan: I used the ISO CD Rom boot disk form of MHDD so not sure if that counts as booting from the HD I'm trying to HPA. Still, the HPA & Config cmds didn't work under any circumstances and I think I tried all possible variations. So, hoping I can run MHDD from my win7 64b box, since you can't run the Restore Factory Size program on Win64 according to the docs & comments. Thanks for the info!

@drc - wow, that's some clue! I forgot I had Media Direct. I saw a tini Fat16 partion toward the front in the partition map, then the main NTFS one, then a Fat32 one at the end. Perhaps the Media Direct is the Fat16 one. If I wanted to zero LBA 3, would I clone all original partitions 1st, then clear LBA 3, then boot up 1st time using the new drive on Windows? Does clearing LBA 3 create file system damage or whatever. In any case, thank you very much for this info!

Don

Since MediaDirect lives in the HPAed area, you will not have seen it in the partition map (it doesn't count as a partition, and has no entry in the MBR). Also, the cloning tool you used will not have actually copied the MediaDirect area. Clearing LBA 3 should not affect anything else on your drive except for eliminating the MediaDirect-related routine at boot time. If you can zero that LBA and then remove the HPA, you should be good to go (obviously the MediaDirect button will no longer work, unless you reinstall MediaDirect)

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You don't have to backup all of your files, just the ones you want to keep.

See Q7(b):
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/HDD/HD ... y_FAQ.html

Understanding the Dell MediaDirect Partition:
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.shtml

Inside the Dell PC Restore Partition - HPA Issues:
http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/hpa-issues.shtml

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A backup a day keeps DR away.