>2TiB external USB drive and WinXP? Of course!

[Comos]

(Info added July, 2019): This solution also works for 10TB WD EasyStore external USB disks.
(Info added in Oct, 2018): Problem solved by (who else?) @Comos, of course!!!
The newer GPT formatted WD My Book and My Passport external USB disks can be reformatted by using the WD Quick Formatter, http://download.wdc.com/misc/WD_Quick_Formatter_Win_1_2_0_10.zip. 
Then they become visible to XP (and report 4KiB sectors, too)!!!

Hi everyone,

as I started a discussion about an issue when running a 3TB HDD on WinXP 32bit in a USB 3.5" drive enclousure, link:

today ,I can confirm, that a external USB HDD from WD, currently 3TB My Book Essential does have full capacity support on Win XP 32bit. (maybe in Win Y2K also)

Today I have bought it and have 3TB in full armor

Seems that the additional WD HW logic takes care of the rest and the related links were speaking the truth:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itproxpsp/thread/8fd33944-0202-4dff-a432-356e2b231f2e/

http://community.wdc.com/t5/External-Drives-for-PC/Exceeding-2Tb-limit-questions/td-p/234694

message to @dencorso:

The light has been kindled !

[allen2]

How is it formated (exfat, NTFS) if there is only one partition ?

[Comos]

How is it formated (exfat, NTFS) if there is only one partition ?

One partition, NTFS

[dencorso]

message to Den (Dencorso)

The light has been kindled !

It sure does!!!

BTW, since you're the 1st to get it, for the time being, *do* *not* reformat nor repartition it.

I'd sure like to look at its first 8kiB, starting from LBA0. Would you kindly get a copy of that with an hexeditor, zip and attach the resulting binary image? TIA.

[Comos]

message to Den (Dencorso)

The light has been kindled !

It sure does!!!

BTW, since you're the 1st to get it, for the time being, *do* *not* reformat nor repartition it.

I'd sure like to look at its first 8kiB, starting from LBA0. Would you kindly get a copy of that with an hexeditor, zip and attach the resulting binary image? TIA.

Sure

WDMBE3T.ZIP

Edited September 11, 2012 by Comos

[dencorso]

Thanks, Comos, you do rock!
It's actually really 4 kiB sectored, as per the links you gave!!!
Now I've seen the evidence. there no doubt about it!
So, it seems we have the following: the (SATA) HDD is really 4 kiB sectored, but fakes 512 byte sectors, then the enclosure controller takes those fake 512 byte sectors and creates fake 4 kiB sectors, as described in the links you gave or (ain't there always an "or"?) the (SATA) HDD is really 4 kiB sectored, but fakes 512 byte sectors to everybody but to the enclosure controller (because it knows the secret handshake)... and, in either case, the USB interface presents 4 kiB sectors to Win XP (which is happy to accept them... I think this is undocumented behaviour)!

[Comos]

Thanks, Comos, you do rock!

It's actually really 4 kiB sectored, as per the links you gave!!!

Now I've seen the evidence. there no doubt about it!

So, it seems we have the following: the (SATA) HDD is really 4 kiB sectored, but fakes 512 byte sectors, then the enclosure controller takes those fake 512 byte sectors and creates fake 4 kiB sectors, as described in the links you gave or (ain't there always an "or"?) the (SATA) HDD is really 4 kiB sectored, but fakes 512 byte sectors to everybody but to the enclosure controller (because it knows the secret handshake)... and, in either case, the USB interface presents 4 kiB sectors to Win XP (which is happy to accept them... I think this is undocumented behaviour)!

Somebody on that forum mentioned, when you will take out the drive from the enclousure and connect it directly on the sata cable,you won't be able to read anything, it would be raw data.But anyway if I count right it would be possible to upgrade this enclousure up to 16TB HDD drive when such drives are available.

[dencorso]

Yes, of course!

And it may even work as a plain FAT-32 drive, too, if I'm not mistaken (but do not test this idea for the time being, please).

Why, it may even work on 9x/ME, with some luck...

Although Paragon NTFS for Win98 would be required for accessing NTFS, of course.

Or Ext2 could be used... there're IFSs for XP and for 9x/ME to use Ext2...

[jaclaz]

There is AFAIK/AFAICR no reason that a mass storage device "has" to have 512 bytes sectors, the BPB in the bootsector and the filesystem have a field for that.

Issue is only if this field is actually used or properly used by code (being code either the OS, it's drivers or BIOS or whatever).

JFYI:

jaclaz

Edited September 12, 2012 by jaclaz

[Comos]

Yes, of course!

And it may even work as a plain FAT-32 drive, too, if I'm not mistaken (but do not test this idea for the time being, please).

Why, it may even work on 9x/ME, with some luck...

Although Paragon NTFS for Win98 would be required for accessing NTFS, of course.

Or Ext2 could be used... there're IFSs for XP and for 9x/ME to use Ext2...

Under Win98SE I can test it.The Paragon's NTFS I have there.

[Comos]

Today I plug it on my Win98SE, but I wasn't able to see any content of the drive.When I start the Paragon NTFS, the system once freezed and during my second try it commit to reset.

So maybe a cluster size issue under this tool?

[dencorso]

No, I guess it's deeper. RLoew reminded me it's necessary to patch Win 9x/ME for it to be able to tackle 4 kiB sectors...

But do give it a last try: start Paragon 1st, then plug in the USB HDD. If that also fails, then a non-free patch is required.

[Comos]

No, I guess it's deeper. RLoew reminded me it's necessary to patch Win 9x/ME for it to be able to tackle 4 kiB sectors...

But do give it a last try: start Paragon 1st, then plug in the USB HDD. If that also fails, then a non-free patch is required.

The Paragon's NTFS has a driver that is started everytime when you boot OS.It is not needed to start the main application evetytime.This is tested with my 1TB WD My Passport Portable.However when pluging the 3T drive, I can see the drive in the system, If I try to access the drive it prompts invalid media or something like this.

So in the first case I opened the main Paragon NTFS aplication, the system freezed during the drive detection.The second try I did when first opening the main aplication,connnect the drive, nothing happened even during the drive refresh.After when I closed the manin apl. and opened it again, the system reset itself hard.

Then I give up

[dencorso]

I have an External USB 2.0 Seagate Expansion 1500 GB, which works. So we know for sure that unpatched 9x/ME can work with up to 1.5 TB, but not as a single partition. For partitions larger than 1TB or HDDs over 2TB, according to RLoew, patching is needed.

[Comos]

I have an External USB 2.0 Seagate Expansion 1500 GB, which works. So we know for sure that unpatched 9x/ME gan work with up to 1.5 TB, but not as a single partition. For partitions larger than 1TB or HDDs over 2TB, according to RLoew, patching is needed.

OKay, good to know.