jaclaz

The page shae found is a "generic" one, the specific disk is - at least from the specifications from the manufacturer - a "native" 512 bytes bytes disk, it's sectors are 512 bytes in size. To be confirmed/checked. It is a "rare" case, actually the first one I find of this kind, you have a device that to the OS is 512 bytes sectored if connected through eSata (i.e. "directly") and 4096 bytes if connected through the USB bridge. The "real" solution (very unlike to be found) would be to re-program the controller in the USB bridge to avoid the translation, see also (though not really related): http://reboot.pro/topic/20228-boot-from-4k-sectors-and-in-particular-usb/ Maybe, and I have to underline maybe, it is possible through rewriting every time you change the interface/connection the MBR and the bootsector to have a working filesystem. Apart changing those, the real issue is that $MFT records on 512 bytes sectored devices are 1024 bytes, whilst on 4k sectored devices they become as well 4k (minimum addressable element): http://blogs.msdn.com/b/ntdebugging/archive/2011/06/28/ntfs-and-4k-disks.aspx What I don't know (and I may need you to experiment with this) if once a NTFS volume has been formatted with 4k sectors and the few bytes are changed in the MBR and bootsector to work on 512 byte sectored the 4k size of the $MFT record is kept or if it will "revert" to 1024 bytes and/or if there is a setting *somewhere* different from the values in the bootsector that governs this $MFT record size. The other possible solution (also unlike to be found unless we find some good guy with excellent programming capabilities) would be a "filter driver" to install on the machine that uses the eSata connection to make the disk appear as 4 kb sectored as it is when connected through the USB. It is possible that such a filter driver already exists, but if it does I know nothing about it. jaclaz

Hmmm. http://knowyourmeme.com/photos/344196-large-hadron-collider jaclaz

Hey, you posted here: I took that to be (with different values) the same that you can see in the screenshot I posted in Windows Resource monitor. If you are sure that this is not your case, my bad though I am of course happy that the case is closed. As a side note, it is really sad how I spent all these years in believing that the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) was actually a hardware abstraction layer and that it was hardware related. jaclaz

I will surprise you telling how I still have *somewhere* a printed (on a needle/dot matrix printer ) the whole manual of that Norton Desktop batch language, which was pretty good at the time, I remember writing in it a "GUI" wrap around to PKZIP/PKUNZIP. jaclaz

What was expected . The partition table when ESATA connected is that of a 512 bytes sector device, the partition table when USB connected is that of a 4096 bytes sector device, see the attachments: The values in the eSATA are 8x the ones in the USB one. eSATA: The first (and only) partition starts at offset 2048*512=1048576 bytes and extends for 1953519616*512=1000202043392 bytes USB: The first (and only) partition starts at offset 256*4096=1048576 bytes and extends for 244189952*4096=1000202043392 bytes As said, the specific model, according to its specsheet: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/SpecSheet/ENG/2879-771436.pdf is NOT an AF drive and NOT a 512e drive, it is a simple, normal, "pure" 512 bytes sectored device, and this has been just confirmed by the results of the fsutil info Dave-H posted. To be confirmed/checked. jaclaz PTVIEWSATA.html PTVIEWUSB.html

What OS does the "local" (please read as "remote" ) computer run? What is the "function" of this PC, just a temporary storage until the data is replicated to the server? And/or what is the function of the server, only provide a long term storage? If there is (or needs to be) anything *secure* is the actual connection, I cannot really understand what do you mean by "Also when a computer fails all the user has to do is to move to next working computer.". If - say - computer #1 has (say) 9 cameras connected to it (and ONLY to it) if the computer "fails" (whatever "fails" mean, hardware, software, power shortage, WHAT?) you cannot access those 9 cameras, no matter how much you cry or stamp your feet, on the other hand if they are IP cameras you can access them from *any* computer as long as you know the IP and the login details, no matter if that PC is running fine or not. Not enough details/data, with all due respect , you are still in the "I'm ill, Doctor, Help!" phase : http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/problem-report-standard-litany.html AND be aware of the risk of slipping on a chocolate covered banana when failing to provide sufficient background info: http://homepage.ntlworld.com./jonathan.deboynepollard/FGA/put-down-the-chocolate-covered-banana.html jaclaz

NO, the issue is different, and I presume at a lower level than I (or you) would like it to be. Please do check with fsutil as in the given link when connected through the one (or the other) interface and post results. My guess at the WHY this is happening, I suspect that there has been a "defect of communication" (or maybe simple stupidity). The good MS guys, before getting on the senseless Intel originated EFI/UEFI madness, had the idea of solving the 2.2 Tb limit the "right" way, i.e. by increasing the physical sector size from 512 to 4096. The good guys from the various hard disk manufacturing companies were happy about this as - as a matter of fact - their disk drives would have a slight advantage. BUT the same good MS guys did not add (or did nto add in a timely enough manner) "native" support for booting and accessing 4096 sectored devices, adding access to it ONLY for USB connected disks. The good hard disk manufacturers then needed to invent the AF drives, drives that are 4096 bytes sectored but that are exposing themselves through a "translation interface" as 512 bytes devices so that the same disk could be used internally and inside an external USB enclosure. In all this some other good guys (the ones that manufacturer USB external enclosures) thought that their enclosure should be able to handle larger than 2.2 Tb disk and since the way set by the good MS guys was to use 4Kb sectored devices, and support for accessing them (but not for booting from them) was available decide to set the USB to Sata bridge to make the translation, i.e. to expose the disk as 4 Kb only. The WD10EZEX of 1 Tb uses according to specs 1,953,525,169 sectors, so definitely it is a "pure" (as it should be BTW) 512 bytes sectored device. It is possible that the previous disk was an AF drive that allowed "by itself" the 4096 bytes per sector "emulation". Right now I have no idea if a workaround for your situation exists and/or if it exists how many attached strings it may have. In theory and with a couple tricks it could be possible to correct the partition table and the boosector when the disk is accessed through one (or the other) interface by running a batch program each time, in theory the NTFS filesystem operates on clusters, and since the clusters are anyway 4096 bytes, once the size of sector and the sector per cluster values have been corrected the filesystem should be accessible and work exactly the same, I am more worried about possible incompatibilities with lower level tools like partition imagers, or similar. jaclaz

My personal shorter version being : "don't use Win 10." jaclaz

You'll need to be corrected again , the "switch" between "exceptionally good software", in which I will include also the Norton Desktop (a replacement shell for Windows 3.x) and "senseless crappy bloat" came well after 1995 (i.e. roughly 20 years ago or less), please read as "with the advent of Windows 95 and later of Windows 98" and the progressive migration to NT based systems (and still the early Norton Utilities for Windows NT did have some usefulness and GHOST- the real thing, not the half @§§ed replacement after Ghost 2003 - still goes strong). I would say that "Norton" products dominated the PC market for 20 years roughly from the 80's through the 90's up to the very early 2000's. jaclaz

You must be joking. That is good ol' DOS! And of course the Norton Utilities (while nice and a very useful tool) were not your "everyday" program, what you had before you most of the time was the Norton Commander : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norton_Commander and it is/was actually so comfortable, useful, fast, etc. that it gave life to the whole idea of OFM (Orthodox File Manager): http://softpanorama.org/OFM/index.shtml Anyone not using a dual pane file manager for copying/moving/reordering/compressing/decompressing/etc. files is losing some little time every day. jaclaz

Yep, though foggy, the thingy worked fine. You can double-check with fsutil, but you are in this situation : http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848035(v=vs.85).aspx EITHER the stupid disk drive (for NO reason whatever since it is only 1 Tb) is "Advanced Format" OR the stupid enclosure (also for NO reason whatever) translates the disk sector size to 4096 bytes from the "native" or "converted" 512. Which EXACT hard disk make/model is it? jaclaz

Welcome to the wonderful word of Microsoft (and Intel + a bunch of hard disk manufacturers) foolish computing . My crystal ball is as often happens foggy, but it is possible that the internal USB to SATA bridge has decided that your disk is 4096 Bytes sectored while the eSata to SATA bridge (that does not exist and thus is pretty much transparent ) allows the disk (which probably is an advanced format one) to declare itself as 512 bytes sectored (or viceversa). Partition and format the NTFS volume through USB connection. Backup MBR and bootsector on an internal drive Repartition and re-format the NTFS volume through the eSata connection. Backup MBR and bootsector on an internal drive Get Hdhacker (or a similar tool) http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/index.html any dd-like tool would do if you are OK with command line, you want firt sector of the \\PhysicalDrive (the MBR) and the first sector of the \\LogicalDrive (the bootsector), using dsfo (part of the DSFOK toolkit) that would be: dsfo \\.\Physicaldrive<drivenumber> 0 512 C:\myUSB.mbr dsfo \.\<driveletter>: 0 512 C:\myUSB.bss then: dsfo \\.\Physicaldrive<drivenumber> 0 512 C:\myeSATA.mbr dsfo \.\<driveletter>: 0 512 C:\myeSATA.bss Compress the 4 files into a .zip archive and attach them and I'll have a look at them. jaclaz

I guess you will need to provide more details on your current configuration and on the actual *needs* you have if you want to get a suitable answer. There is nothing "usual" in "install and maintain remote security camera", nothing "usual" in having in any way Windows Server 2008 involved in it , and as well nothing "usual" in using (or not using) Active Directory or Remote desktop connection. In any case a third question is missing : c) What does he gain by not using Active Directory? jaclaz

Worse or better, it still seems to me like the issue is not in the BIOS but rather in the limit within the Windows 7 kernel. I.e., if you prefer, it is likely that if you try patching the OS, you will be able to have: -Hardware Reserved: 128 (which decency forbids me to translate) -Total: 3967 (which translates in ~4x1024 "seen" -128VGA) -Installed: 4096MB (which decency forbids me to translate) jaclaz

Of course i was half-joking , but you seemingly have not checked if (as I believe) the "2.87" is caused by just the OS, by a "specific" combination of BIOS+OS or by the BIOS alone. What do you see (without any fancy benchmark tool) in Windows 7 Resource Monitor, like, you know: jaclaz

Which I can guess is the "standard", completely unlike modified, Siicon Image one : http://www.siliconimage.com/support/ http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/SWD-003x12-00W-1361.zip If this is the case, I would try also the 1.3.67: http://www.siliconimage.com/docs/3x12_13670_x86_logo.zip It seems like the "Chicago" signature disappeared in 1.3.68 jaclaz

Allow me to guess that the drivers are these: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/142799-goodbad-sata-controllers-for-win98/?p=915048 http://www.vantecusa.com/system/application/media/data_file/ugt-st350.zip jaclaz

Yep , but quite a few things are not there JFYI: http://ss64.com/nt/start.html there are issues sometimes when start is used without a "title" or just ""... jaclaz

Try CD /D http://ss64.com/nt/cd.html (and use double quotes for paths containing spaces ). jaclaz

Sure, save it as a .cmd and run it "as is", it should help you find out what is the issue you are having with the batch Yzöwl posted. As a general rule, when you are testing a batch, you DO NOT run it by double clicking on it, but rather open a command prompt, navigate to where the batch is and then you invoke it from command line, by typing the batch filename. jaclaz

Try running this one: @Echo Off & SetLocal DisableDelayedExpansionSet "_BD=Documents\1C SoftClub\il-2 sturmovik cliffs of dover - MOD\DashPics"ECHO "%CD%"ECHO "%_BD%"ECHO are the above two lines identical?PAUSEIf "%CD%" NEq "%_BD%" PushD %_BD%||Exit/Bjaclaz

And I guess you have not the guts to patch the Windows 7 (32 bit) to allow it seeing the whole 4Gb, right? jaclaz

Why not? I try to be objective as much as I can, the subjective part is that I don't like it, no matter how many SP the good MS guys make on it, there are more than a few things like (as NoelC mentioned before)the UAC madness and the utter stupidity/complexity of the \boot\BCD and BOOTMGR+Winload.exe, including the hardcoding of the \boot\ folder (which were - sadly as expected - ported over to 7 and later and even worsened by the good EFI/UEFI guys) that I simply cannot stand. But overall there is a seemingly unneeded complexity in these newish OSes that I hate. As another example, try having a booting timing issue with Vista (or later) and generate a trace, you know, like: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/117154-trace-vista-bootshutdownhibernatestandbyresume-issues/ http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/140247-trace-windows-7-bootshutdownhibernatestandbyresume-issues/ Of course most of the people will rather have a slowish boot than go into that, and - again sadly as expected - the MS guys managed to make that awful experience even worse: http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/146919-install-the-windows-performance-tool-kit-wpt/ jaclaz

Because he is using a loooooong cable to connect the PC to the hard disk? jaclaz

As always my hat off to Mary Jo Foley , I wish I was able to get (as she is capable of) a (I presume nice) living out of hearsay, inconsistent news, random blabberings, plain associaton of names, possibly some use of Tarots and what not, crafting them in what is nothing but wild guesses, wishful thinking and speculations that are however seemingly worth to be published on influential specialized magazines and considered so relevant to be tam-tamed all around the world in a few hours.... However, allow me to say that if nomen est omen: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nominative_determinism the new thingy won't have many features . http://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/spartan jaclaz