2 TiB limit size in MBR hard drives

[jaclaz]

1 hour ago, Tripredacus said:

I was wondering if behaviours would be different if there was more than 2.2TB data total on the disk, with the partitions/volumes laid out like it is. That is why I made the comment about adding more to C:

No, that wouldn't make any difference the extents are "reserved" to a partition/volume, no matter if it is filled up or not, that is the whole point about partitioning .

Once the OS can access the volume, it doesn't matter, all the volume structures are relative to first sector, the NTFS filesystem has 64 bit fields, and - in any case - the "units addressed" in the filesystem are LCN (Logical Cluster Number) that is normally 8 kb in size, so it won't ever reach the 32 bit limit within a volume whose size in sectors, i.e. 512 bytes units, is below that.

The potential issue is only if anything sums the LBA address and LBA size expressed in sectors.

1 hour ago, Tripredacus said:

Would it be enough to just put this disk as a secondary on an XP system, or do you have the same requirement that the OS be booted from it?

Booting would be probably tricky, not because of the NTFS or anything else connected to the volume, but only because of (maybe) some limitations in NTLDR (and/or NTDETECT.COM).

There is/was a known issues with SETUPLDR.BIN on DVD's where if the (CDFS) LBA was too high it would not boot, I would be not surprised if something similar happened with NTLDR.

But in any case there is no real *need* to boot from this "added" volume even in single disk systems, as the bootable volume can anyway be the "first" one (or however any volume entirely contained within the first 2.2 Tb.

So, yes, attaching the disk as secondary on an XP system would be more than adequate for the test. 

jaclaz

 

[Tripredacus]

Last bits from Win7 testing.

How Explorer sees the partition:

Diskpart info:

Chkdsk results:

Fragmenting worked, Windows defrag analyze and defragmenter worked without errors.

Also no errors, warning or info relating to the disk in Event Viewer at all.

Will work on putting XP on this (or something) and see how that likes the disk.

Windows XP Pro SP3 x86 on same hardware. D410PT. BTW SATA mode in BIOS is set to IDE, as it was for the Win7 testing.

There is definately a problem here, so I'll presume I get to run some other tests.

XP detects the disk alright, but the volume it shows is 764GB, which is not a size of either partition on the disk, nor the unallocated:

It does not show a file system in Disk Management.

If you try to open it from Explorer, it says it is not formatted.

EDIT: The Size of D: it sees being 746.52GB "partition" is a partition that doesn't exist. BUT this size is the same size you can see as unallocated in a previous screenshot. This is the amount of space that would be unallocated past the 2.2TB boundary. Note that this PC does not see the 1.8TB partition at all.

[jaclaz]

Let's see if I can sum it up.

The issue here seems to be with the first partition, besides and before the second.

When you were on 7 you had (initially):
1st partition: 1852.69 Gb

Unused: 195.31

Unused (AND inaccessible in Disk Manager because past the 2.2 Tb) : 746.52

Later you had: 

1st partition: 1852.69 Gb

Unused: 195.31

2nd partition; 600 Gb

Unused (and inaccessible in Disk Manager): 146.52

Now (on XP) you have only one  partition (not formatted with a valid filesystem) with the same size of the extents beyond the 2.2 Tb.

Queer, really queer.

Can you check the actual contents of the MBR partition table?

On XP you can use (say) TinyHexer with my MBR or PTN template:

http://reboot.pro/topic/8734-tiny-hexer-scripts/

or any other suitable disk editor or MBR utility.

Or simply reconnect the disk to the Windows 7 system and see what it finds now.

It is well possible that Disk Manager mingled something (not unlike what it does on non cylinder aligned logical volumes inside extended):

http://reboot.pro/topic/9897-vistawin7-versus-xp-partitioning-issue/

http://www.dcr.net/~w-clayton/Vista/DisappearingPartitions/DisappearingPartitions.htm

but in that case some user action, besides merely opening the disk manager was needed, namely changing the active status of a primary partition.

jaclaz

 

[jaclaz]

Also, check the actual SATA/IDE controller drivers on the XP, there are many reports of issues with drivers, often INTEL RST, causing that problem, it can happen also on Windows 7 machines, examples:

https://www.servethehome.com/fix-746gb-3tb-hard-drive-issue/

https://www.chrisnewland.com/solved-3tb-hard-drive-only-shows-74652gb-in-windows-7-389

You can also try (since you are anyway in IDE mode) the "Standard Dual PCI IDE Controller":

http://www.aomeitech.com/forum/discussion/682/what-to-do-when-new-3tb-hard-drive-only-showing-746-gb/p1

jaclaz

 

[Tripredacus]

Shutdown and unplugged the XP disk. Was able to boot into the Win7 and the partitions are all the same as before.

Back in XP, Changing to the Microsoft driver instead of Intel for the PCI IDE controller doesn't change how the disk is seen. There is no newer storage driver for this board, I installed the latest chipset and it says everything was up to date. This board is a SFF board, it doesn't support RAID, so there is no IRST for it. I can try to install an old version to see if it matters. It does seem right now that this XP install doesn't see the disk properly because of drivers.

PS: for reference. This PC has 2 disks in it. A 160GB with XP on it, and the 3TB with Win7 32bit on it. The 3TB was not used as a secondary disk in a different Win7 system. Win7 32bit is installed on to the 1.8GB partition.

Still want me to try that TinyHexer from within XP?

For older OSes like 2000 or NT4, I do not think I have any hardware that support that OS and also have SATA ports.

[jaclaz]

No, it's ok (meaning it isn't ).

The disk partitions are intact as confirmed by the successful re-test on the windows 7 machine, the issue you are having is only the "generic" 764 Gb instead of 3 Tb seen that is connected with this (or that) XP driver and it is most probably not connected with the second partition.

The check with Tiny Hexer would be only useful to understand if it actually can see/access the disk MBR (first sector of the physical drive) or if the 746 Gb (as I suspect) are just the result of some "queer" wrap around.

To definitely check you can 0x00 the second partition table entry and try again, but I doubt that it will change anything,

In any case the issue is solvable only if you can find and install fully working drivers (that may or may not exist for your specific board), or maybe - cannot say - it is some BIOS incompatibility,

There is (or was) a DDO of sorts for Seagate drives, but using it would of course be another thing (and I believe it is hardcoded at the 2.2 Tb mark):

http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/218619en?

Easier would be - to see if you have any other motherboard (and XP install) that can see the full 3 Tb.

jaclaz

 

 

[Tripredacus]

Ok there are some other old systems here currently I can test XP on.

[dencorso]

And then, there is UniATA, too...

[jaclaz]

20 minutes ago, dencorso said:

And then, there is UniATA, too...

Sure , but it is better to avoid introducing "third party" drivers in the experiment, a "normal" XP machine should normally work with 3 tb disks with the manufacturers' (or Microsoft's "standard") drivers.

It is possible that 3 Tb support was added to the OS on some update/hotfix, but I doubt it.  a plain SP3 should be fine, we have many reports of 3 Tb disks (512 bytes sectored) working just fine in XP (limited to a first parttion of 2.2 Tb or however up to the 2.2 Tb limit) and the internet is choking full of reports of both XP and 7 showing the 746 Gb issue, but with no real "fix" if not "try this other driver version, and reportedly the standard Microsoft drivers work.

Tripredacus' machine may be "peculiar" (for one reason or the other).

jaclaz

 

 

[dencorso]

Yes. (Or, maybe, no). 
As you know, a 3TB external USB HDD also works fine on XP, due to that inferred 4k=>fake 512=>fake 4k sector thing.
I mean that if the native XP drives aren't up to it, maybe UniATA, etc.

[jaclaz]

3 minutes ago, dencorso said:

Yes. (Or, maybe, no). 
As you know, a 3TB external USB HDD also works fine on XP, due to that 4k=>fake 512=>fake 4k sector thing.
I mean that if the native XP drives aren't up to it, maybe UniATA, etc.

Well, the 512 to 4Kb conversion is another thing, a good example is here:

http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/687139-3TB-External-hard-drive-works-under-Windows-XP-out-of-the-box

What we are working on is exclusively to debunk the 2.2Tb MBR addressing limit myth (which  is more like almost 4.4 Tb) and till now we have it demostrated on Windows 7.

There are as said n reports of people runnning XP on a 2.2 Tb partition on 3 Tb disks, in these cases the last part of the disk (the famous 746 Gb) are not partitioned/not partitionable, but the first 2.2 Tb can be partitioned just fine, exactly what happened to Tripredacus under Windows 7 and to the user on the referenced overclockers thread.

Please take note how 349.31*8=2794,48 and 4096/512=8

jaclaz

 

[Tripredacus]

Same result with Intel D2700MUD.

[jaclaz]

1 hour ago, Tripredacus said:

Same result with Intel D2700MUD.

Well, this tells me nothing.

Which drivers?

Which BIOS?

Etc. ..., it's not like I have handy the specs of a Intel D2700MUD (whatever it is) and certainly know nothing about how yours is set up.

You can actually (if you can[1] of course) try installing the UNIATA:

http://alter.org.ua/soft/win/uni_ata/

as dencorso suggested, that explicitly supports larger disks.

jaclaz

 

[1] meaning without disrupting your XP system or accepting that installing the UNIATA driver may corrupt it beyond repair (it shouldn't, but you never know).

[Tripredacus]

I am now to another board now. I had also tired to use an ECS board but I couldn't activate XP.

So now I am on an MSI PM8PM-V. It has the same issue in IDE mode with the Microsoft driver, the VIA IDE driver and the VIA RAID driver, as downloaded from MSI's website. For RAID, I have it just in JBOD, but the VIA Tool program opens and shows this information about the disk:

I will try that UNIATA thing out.

Regarding the XP OS, I can easily reimage it without an issue.

[dencorso]

You'll find the latest version at Alter's site's official UniATA page. Look for Version 0.46e3.