500GB HDD From SKY+HD DRX890

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500GB HDD From SKY+HD DRX890

Postby mercxx76xx » Wed Jul 31, 2013 12:31 am

Hi all,

I have got a hard drive from a DRX890 it says 500GB on the drive but when I connect to laptop it states 279GB hdd, how do I wipe the whole drive so I can use it as a 500gb external drive for my pc please. Thank you for you time xx
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Re: 500GB HDD From SKY+HD DRX890

Postby pcbbc » Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:21 am

Windows Disk Management, Delete Partition, Reformat. Use NTFS format if you will be using in your PC with a modern OS (with Windows you will not be able to format a drive that big with FAT32 anyway).
Even then you will not get it to say the full 500GB but more like 466GB. This is because Windows the disk manufacturer's and Microsoft's definition of GB differ.
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Re: 500GB HDD From SKY+HD DRX890

Postby mercxx76xx » Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:32 am

PCBBC Thanks for the reply, This is what I thought, but for some reason it still only shows up as a 279gb hdd, and no other partitions. I figured I wouldn't of got the full disc size. I have also tried gparted and that only shows it as a 279gb hdd. So im guessing a partition is locked off and hidden somehow xx
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Re: 500GB HDD From SKY+HD DRX890

Postby pcbbc » Wed Jul 31, 2013 9:50 am

mercxx76xx wrote:PCBBC Thanks for the reply, This is what I thought, but for some reason it still only shows up as a 279gb hdd, and no other partitions. I figured I wouldn't of got the full disc size. I have also tried gparted and that only shows it as a 279gb hdd. So im guessing a partition is locked off and hidden somehow xx
Either there is a jumper set to restrict the disk size (check the manufacturers documentation) or the size has been restricted using the Set Max LBA ATA command to set the maximun size the drive reports. This is not a partitioning issue. These are implemented feature of the drive to allow it to be backward compatible with older hardware that can not handle newer larger drive sizes.

In the case of the Max LBA setting you'll need a tool that can send the correct ATA command to the disk to change the setting. Usually the drive manufacturer has a support utility to do this (although being an industry standard just about any manufacturers tool that supports it will work). I used to use the IBM Hitachi feature tool on all my drives. I think a copy is available here to make a bootable CD.

However note that normally the drive must be connected to the computers physical ATA controller (either PATA, SATA or eSATA, and not via USB adapter) for this to work.
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