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Decadent

5 Posts

15452

July 25th, 2006 20:00

ST910021AS Hard drive capacity problem

I just bought a dell inspiron e1705 with a 100GB 7200rpm sata harddrive pre-installed. When I check the hard drive capacity, it's about 91.75GB. Now don't jump up too soon I know that the 100GB is supposed to be 100000000000B physically, which is 10^11B/1024/1024/1024=93.13GB in windows. Still, it's about 1.4GB short. And yes, I counted all the partitions on the disk (Dell Utility, C, Dell Restore, etc.). So what's the catch? Thanks!

Message Edited by Decadent on 07-25-200604:21 PM

Entropy42

529 Posts

July 26th, 2006 14:00


@Decadent wrote:
I just bought a dell inspiron e1705 with a 100GB 7200rpm sata harddrive pre-installed. When I check the hard drive capacity, it's about 91.75GB. Now don't jump up too soon I know that the 100GB is supposed to be 100000000000B physically, which is 10^11B/1024/1024/1024=93.13GB in windows. Still, it's about 1.4GB short. And yes, I counted all the partitions on the disk (Dell Utility, C, Dell Restore, etc.). So what's the catch? Thanks!

Message Edited by Decadent on 07-25-200604:21 PM




If I recall correctly, the way Dell MediaDirect works is to use a fully hidden partition that can only be accessed in certain BIOS modes, and when not in those modes the hard drive doesn't even report that are of the hard drive as existing.

I believe it's called Host Protected Area, but I could be wrong about the name.

Decadent

5 Posts

July 26th, 2006 18:00

I guess that's it. Too bad I already re-formatted my hdd and deleted the Dell utilities partition. Is it still possible to reclaim the hidden space?

Decadent

5 Posts

July 26th, 2006 19:00

Dan, you're the man! I hope I saw it earlier.
 
Oh, by the way, since I've already reinstalled my system, I don't wanna go through all the formatting and installation again. My understanding is that I never touched the HPA, so the MediaDirect software might be still good to use, but I just don't have access to it without the Dell utilities partition, right? I don't really need Dell utilities, just want to use the MediaDirect software. So is there an easier way to regain the control to MediaDirect?
 
Maybe the answer is on your website. I'm still reading. Thanks again!

Message Edited by Decadent on 07-26-200604:04 PM

dg1261

623 Posts

July 26th, 2006 19:00

"When I check the hard drive capacity, it's about 91.75GB. ... "

See if this helps: www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm.

"Is it still possible to reclaim the hidden space?"

To reclaim the space lost to the HPA, visit www.hgst.com and find Hitachi's "Feature Tool".  This works on all hard disks, not just Hitachis, and includes a function to set the user addressable capacity of the hard disk.  I believe Dell also has a tool to remove the HPA, but I don't recall if it might have been in one of the partitions you deleted.

BTW, since you are removing all the special Dell partitions, you should get rid of the Dell MBR, too.  If you've reinstalled XP from CD then it has already overwritten the Dell MBR, but if not, I would use "fixmbr" or "fdisk /mbr" to make sure you zap the Dell MBR.  Otherwise, the Dell MBR can put the HPA back after you've tried to delete it with Feature Tool.

 

Dan Goodell

 

Message Edited by dg1261 on 07-26-200601:56 PM

dg1261

623 Posts

July 27th, 2006 08:00

"My understanding is that I never touched the HPA, so the MediaDirect software might be still good to use, but I just don't have access to it without the Dell utilities partition, right?"
 
Yes, that's the gist of it.  It's not that the DellUtility partition itself is specifically required, the requirement is that the descriptor for the active partition (your XP partition) cannot be the first descriptor in the partition table.
 
(I suspect this limitation is deliberately designed in by Dell.  In the Dell scheme of things, there is supposed to be a DellUtility partition first.  The only time this is supposed to be the active partition is when the system is first taken out of the box--before the user has agreed to the Dell EULA.  Because you removed DellUtility, your normally active XP partition became the first partition, so the Dell MBR misinterprets that to mean you haven't agreed to the EULA yet and steadfastly refuses to boot any other partition, including the MD partition.)
 
Some of the links on my webpage are to another forum where people have struggled with this problem.  Basically, the issue is you have to figure out how to get XP so it's not first in the partition table.
 
 

Decadent

5 Posts

July 28th, 2006 05:00

I tried the repair method described in one of the links on notebookforum
Still no luck. I guess I'll just reclaim the HPA space as you suggested and reinstall the MediaDirect. It probably is faster than trying to figure out wth is going on.:smileyhappy: Thanks again!

Message Edited by Decadent on 07-28-200601:49 AM

Decadent

5 Posts

July 29th, 2006 02:00

I used seagate's own tool, discwizard, to change the hdd capacity, and it works like a charm.

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