Seagate Expansion Drive 2TB is not detected!

[Creative3DMM]

Hey everyone!

I have stumbled in a little problem. I bought an external HDD and Windows 98 SE can't detect it for some reason. The HDD is a Segate Expansion Hard Drive with 2 TB. I created two partitions on the HDD, one with FAT32 and one with NTFS. The HDD has USB 3.0 but it should work with 2.0 if i'm correct.

I have the Universal USB Driver by Maximus Decim (ver.3.6) and Windows 98 SE Unofficial Service Pack 3 (3.23) installed in my computer.

Also i should note that my motherboard is a ASUS P4P800S-E (Socket 478) with USB 2.0 ports.

Please, feel free to reply if you have a solution to this problem.

[rloew]

Is it ignored completely or does it Install a Driver and then not get a Drive Letter?

[Creative3DMM]

Is it ignored completely or does it Install a Driver and then not get a Drive Letter?

Well, actually it is detected. But no drive letter pops up.

BTW, my NTFS partition has 1.71 TB and my FAT32 partition 100 GB.

[jaclaz]

Make a dump of first sector of the disk (under another OS/other PC if you cannot do that on that Win 9x machine).

Make it a .zip or.7z archive and attach it to your next post.

You want first sector of PhysicalDrive, a suiitable app for 2K and later is Hdhacker:

http://dimio.altervista.org/eng/

Or if you can somehow access it from Win9x, you can use the PTDE disk editor:

http://thestarman.pcministry.com/tool/de/PTS-DE.htm

jaclaz

[Creative3DMM]

I don't know if this is what your looking for, i am really confused if i'm doing right or not. But i gave it shot.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/pccazp

Edited March 9, 2014 by Creative3DMM

[jaclaz]

Yep.

You have a hard disk device (Harddisk1) which has a single partition, FAT32 CHS, and that is not bootable, and that has unbalanced CHS/LBA values, with a volume size of 782,180*512=4,004,478,976 bytes (i.e. most probably a USB stick) with sector size of 512 bytes.

Then you have a hard disk device (harddisk2) with has two partitions, a primary and an extended.

The first one, primary, has been created by Vista or later and is NOT aligned to Cylinder/head, it is NTFS (or exFAT) an has a size of 459,521,212*4096=1,882,198,884,352 with sector size of 4096 bytes.

The second one, extended, has also been created by Vista or later, it is NOT aligned to Cylinder/Head, has a size of 28,852,740*4096=118,180,823,040 bytes and most probably (but I have no way to know for sure) contains a single Logical Volume formatted as FAT32.

Now - dont' take it as an offence - if you wanted to create the least possibly compatible device with a DOS/Windows 98, particularly for a USB connected device, you would use:

• not aligned to Cylinder/head partitions
• a partition starting beyond the 128 Gb barrier
• a volume or partition on non 512 bytes sectored device

It seems like that drive is a "pure" 4Kb sectored one , I believe (but I have no specific experience with this) that it simply won't work unless some serious patches are implemented:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/141013-hard-drives-with-4kb-sector-size-are-now-available/

But anyway you need/should IMHO partition the disk with the first (primary) partition as the FAT32 one, and keep it below the 128 Gb limit, and have it respect Cylinder/Head boundaries, and do whatever you want to do with the rest of the disk (the second partition NTFS can be differently aligned to Mbyte and be either Primary or logical without extended, as in any case you won't access it from the Windows 98.

It is possible (but improbable, since it is a USB 3.0 case) that the disk inside is not a "pure" 4Kb one, but has the possibility of being set to AF (Advanced Format), one would need to know the EXACT model of the actual disk inside.

jaclaz

[rloew]

I have a number of Seagate External USB Hard Drives. They use 4K Logical Sectors for Drives larger than 2TiB (2.2TB).

The ones below this size, including the 2TB Drives use 512 Byte Logical Sectors and their adapters automatically switch depending on the Drive used.

There are 2TB Drives that use 4K Logical Sectors such as the Hitachi Touro, and others above 2TiB that use 512 Byte Logical Sectors.

I wasn't expecting it, so I didn't ask about it, but apparently Seagate has chosen to break compatability even when it is not necessary.

I have yet to find a BIOS that can recognize a 4K Logical Sector USB Hard Drive.

Exactly what Model Drive are you using?

I downloaded and examined the MBRs you posted. For the Partition sizes you described, there is not doubt that the Drive is Partitioned with 4K Sectors as Jaclaz has already noted.

The other issues he noted won't matter in this case, but you will need many of the Patches in my TeraByte Plus Package to access this drive.

[Creative3DMM]

I have a number of Seagate External USB Hard Drives. They use 4K Logical Sectors for Drives larger than 2TiB (2.2TB).

The ones below this size, including the 2TB Drives use 512 Byte Logical Sectors and their adapters automatically switch depending on the Drive used.

There are 2TB Drives that use 4K Logical Sectors such as the Hitachi Touro, and others above 2TiB that use 512 Byte Logical Sectors.

I wasn't expecting it, so I didn't ask about it, but apparently Seagate has chosen to break compatability even when it is not necessary.

I have yet to find a BIOS that can recognize a 4K Logical Sector USB Hard Drive.

Exactly what Model Drive are you using?

I downloaded and examined the MBRs you posted. For the Partition sizes you described, there is not doubt that the Drive is Partitioned with 4K Sectors as Jaclaz has already noted.

The other issues he noted won't matter in this case, but you will need many of the Patches in my TeraByte Plus Package to access this drive.

Well, my model drive is: SRD00F2 (Seagate Expansion Drive 2 TB)

Also, what kind of patches are necessary for the drive to function under Windows 98 SE?

[dencorso]

Although RLoew certainly can give you more details, there's a short description of the TeraByte Plus Package at his site. Once there, scroll down and you'll see the link.

[Creative3DMM]

Although RLoew certainly can give you more details, there's a short description of the TeraByte Plus Package at his site. Once there, scroll down and you'll see the link.

Oh, thanks!

[rloew]

Is there another Model Number?

SRD00F2 gives me links to 2TB and 3TB Drives.

[dencorso]

The HDD is a Segate Expansion Hard Drive with 2 TB.

Exactly what Model Drive are you using?

Well, my model drive is: SRD00F2 (Seagate Expansion Drive 2 TB)

Is there another Model Number?

SRD00F2 gives me links to 2TB and 3TB Drives.

Hence, the link to follow is the one to the 2 TB drive, of course.

[rloew]

Just wanted to be sure.

At least one person on the various forums I scanned assumed he had a 2TB when it he actually had a 3TB.

SRD00F2 is the Enclosure's Model Number. Seagate lists the Model Numbers as STBV2000100 and STBV3000100.

[Creative3DMM]

Just wanted to be sure.

At least one person on the various forums I scanned assumed he had a 2TB when it he actually had a 3TB.

SRD00F2 is the Enclosure's Model Number. Seagate lists the Model Numbers as STBV2000100 and STBV3000100.

I can confirm that my model number is STBV2000100

[jaclaz]

It's "queer"

I mean the demented guys at Seagate do not provide actual specifications in what they call "data sheet":

http://www.seagate.com/external-hard-drives/desktop-hard-drives/expansion-hard-drive/?sku=STBV2000100#specs

http://www.seagate.com/www-content/product-content/expansion-fam/expansion-external/en-us/docs/expansion-desktop-ds1763-4-1306us.pdf

but they do state compatibility with XP SP3 (which AFAIK does not "accept" native 4Kb sectored disks as well).

As a matter of fact not even Windows 7 is compatible with "native" 4Kb sectors:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2510009/en-us

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh848035(v=vs.85).aspx

The only thought I have is that *somehow* those drives have a form of AF or 512E setting (possibly Seagate proprietary) that has not been set when the disk was partitioned or that they can use "special" drivers under XP, i.e. it uses a procedure similar to the one to have BIGGER than 2 Tb disks in Windows XP:

http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/beyond-2tb/

But I don't know.

jaclaz