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Formatting an external drive using different interfaces


Dave-H

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I ordered a WD1002FAEX, which was clearly specified on all the order documentation, but what they'd actually sent was a WD1003FZEX. The latter is, of course, an Advanced Format drive!

That's a bummer. Nothing like getting not what you ordered. "But it's a higher a number, it's better!", they'll say.
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You've got it right: here are the WD Caviar Black series, from 1 TB up: FAEX are "normal", 512-byte sectored, HDDs, while FZEX are 4-KiB sectored, AF, HDDs. All are SATA 6 Gb/s; the older "normal", 512-byte sectored, 3Gb/s were FASS or FALS.

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I would still be curious to know how the disk is seen in Windows 8.x when directly connected to a SATA port.

 

According to the mentioned resources:

AF, 4K native -> 4096/4096

AF, 512e -> 512/4096

512n -> 512/512

 

The results of the previous tests seem to indicate that the adapter translates also the SATA channel :w00t: so that what gets in is 512/4096 and what gets out is 512/512 on eSATA and 4096/4096 on USB. :unsure:

 

While Dencorso and NoelC were happily lingering in their consumerist laziness :whistle::ph34r: I did a few checks and, though I have not yet nothing of practical use, I can confirm that with a few byte patches it is possible to have the same NTFS filesystem mounted fine on either 512 or 4096 bytes sectored device, as a matter of fact I was surprised by the support (for access NOT booting) that good ol' Windows XP has for NTFS on 4kb sectored (virtual) devices, something that the good MS guys seemed to exclude a priori.

 

jaclaz

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The enclosure I'm using is a NL-HD29 made by Newlink.

A firmware update may help.

No firmware update at distributor: http://www.newlinkproducts.co.uk/prodinfo.asp?catID=6&prodID=294

Which chipset is used internally? Can you make some pictures?

Well here's a couple of pictures of the interface, for what it's worth.

I'm not quite sure how you would update the firmware even if it were possible, would you do it via the USB connector, or from the connected drive perhaps?

:)

 

post-84253-0-42307500-1420636162_thumb.j post-84253-0-78165200-1420982783_thumb.j

Edited by Dave-H
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Or maybe just avoid JM20377 unless proven the specific enclosure with it does function the same on both interfaces.

The "detailed" JM20337 datasheet I found is just 15 pages and doesn't say much, but maybe there are newer revisions than that 2005 document. There's no mention of AF or 4K. There are just a handful of basic SATA configuration options (SSC, hotplug), and the possibility of defining the USB VID/PID/strings (through the unpopulated U4 on Dave's board). There doesn't seem to be any developer-accessible firmware.

Edited by shae
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While Dencorso and NoelC were happily lingering in their consumerist laziness 

 

And while you indulge in self-mortification (aka reading Microsoft documentation) may I remind you of "the path of moderation"...  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Way

 

And never forget that drive makers gotta pay for their kids' college edumacation!

 

-Noel

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Well as I thought, the supplier doesn't actually have a WD1002FAEX drive, and can't get one, so the WD1003FZEX is going back tomorrow for a refund.

I searched for an alternative source of a new WD1002FAEX here in the UK, but everywhere was "discontinued" or "out of stock".

:no:

There were a few sources in the States, but they wanted silly money, even before adding the shipping charges.

 

I eventually found someone in the UK on eBay selling a used one, so I've bought that.

I hope it's OK (and the right drive of course!), and I should get it after the weekend.

:)

Edited by Dave-H
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Dave-H,

are you game to play "lab rat" :w00t::ph34r:?

I think I have a workaround for your situation, and even if it is not really *needed* anymore, if it works OK it could be of some use to someone in the same situation.

If you are willing to test it, let me know and I will put together *something* that you will be able to test on your device (this will require of course a new partitioning/formatting of the disk).

jaclaz

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OK, I probably won't get my "new" drive until Monday at the earliest anyway, so I'm up for a bit of testing with the drive I've already got!

As you say, it will be good if there is any sort of solution or workaround for this problem for people in the future, once non-Advanced Format drives become completely unobtainable.

:)

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...once non-Advanced Format drives become completely unobtainable.

 

Which is already almost the case. The FAEX Caviar Blacks are the last non-AF from WD. Their new spec sheet for 2015 isn't out yet, but I bet all will be out-of-production by then. Interestingly the whole roster was: WD1002FAEX, WD1502FAEX, WD2002FAEX, WD3001FAEX, WD4001FAEX, the latter two models being really peculiar, in that they are 512-bytes sectored HDD's having 3 and 4 TB of full capacity, respectively, and therefore unusable with the traditional MBR. In particular, the WD1002FAEX was the 512-bytes sectored SATA 6 Gb/s TB-class HDD produced by WD for the longest time (since 2010), so it should be the easiest of them all to be found, and, in fact, as Dave-H has just shown us, it's already relatively difficult to find, as of now. Here's hoping jaclaz's workaroud works beautifully! :yes:

 

@jaclaz: take care not to confuse with laziness a binge of unrelenting consumerism !!! :w00t:

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Ok.

 

Please find attached a test image, it is to create a NTFS volume about 100 Mb in size.

You need to extract the image from the archive and then dd it to the target disk.

 

If you don't have already a suitable dd-like tool, get the DSFOK tools from here:

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/

and run the command:

dsfi \\.\Physicaldriven 0 0 dualmode.img

where n is the number of the disk as seen in disk manager. (be careful to choose the right n)

 

Disconnect and reconnect the disk.

 

What should happen:

  1. opening explorer you should see two added drive letters
  2. one of the two will be relative to a (very small) volume 68 Kb in size
  3. open this drive and in it there will be (among other files) a Switcher.cmd
  4. run it, it will - if needed - switch between 512 bytes/sector and 4096 bytes/sector filesystem for the second volume
  5. copy to this second volume a few files
  6. disconnect/remove the disk and connect it again through the "other" interface
  7. repeat steps #1 to #4
  8. check that the files you wrote in step #5 are still there, normally accessible, etc.
  9. use the second volume indifferently though the one or the other interface.

Points of note:

  • the disk will remain set to the bytes sector relative to the "last run" of Switcher.cmd, so, when you re-connect it through "the other" you NEED to run the Switcher.cmd again (while if you re-connect it through "the same" it is optional and only useful to verify that the volume was mounted correctly).
  • if you double click on explorer on the second drive letter, if the bytes/sector are set "the other way" you will be prompted to format the drive, DO NOT do it, it simply means that you must run the switcher.cmd.
  • the drive/volume should behave normally in everything, including CHKDSK, but DO NOT use Disk Manager or any other tool to modify the partitioning.

Limitations:

  1. there can be only two volumes on the disk, one is the pre-made very small volume and one for "all the rest"
  2. this setup is intended for a NON-bootable disk, maybe it could be possible to make it bootable, but ONLY through the interface that exposes the device as 512 bytes/sector 

 

If the experiment succeeds, I will put together a set of instructions and a batch to the effect of the following:

  1. you connect the disk through the USB interface (i.e. the one that exposes the device as 4096 bytes/sector)
  2. you create normally from within the Windows a NTFS partition using all your disk space (starting by default from sector 256*4096 or 2048*512 or offset 1,048,576) and format it
  3. you run a few commands to "convert" the disk to the "dual mode" settings

 

jaclaz

dualmode.7z

Edited by jaclaz
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Thanks jaclaz, but the compressed image file doesn't seem to work.

I've downloaded it several times with the same result.

WinRAR reports -

 

! C:\Temp Folder\dualmode.7z: Unknown method in dualmode.img
! C:\Temp Folder\dualmode.7z: Error - operation failed

Universal Extractor won't uncompress it either.

:no:

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