Read GPT hard disk on Windows XP

[Dave-H]

Thanks everyone again.

I've now disabled the Core Storage Volumes Driver service, and that error has gone away, with no apparent ill effects.

I really don't think that there's anything physically wrong with the hardware.
It all works fine in Windows 10 exactly as it should.
I'm not too worried about the 'retry' warning I was getting in Windows 10, I think it's gone away now anyway, although I will keep an eye out for it.
I don't think it's got anything to do with the disk not being seen at all by Disk Management in XP.

The eSATA interface card is a Silicon Image 3512 SATALink controller.
As far as I can see it is using the latest driver 1.3.71.1, from 2008.
I will keep looking to see if there's a later one.

[D.Draker]

If an HDD runs fine when connected directly, it's 100% something's acting up on the route. First, cables, second - PSU, third - the chip, but also poorly soldered connectors.

I use these, not ideal, but quite fine, I don't trust the supplied storage that comes with the disk.

They are made from aluminium, painted black, super speed, it's what I use. Supplied with a 2A PSU and a good eSATA cable and one USB 3.2 cable (very thick, good quality).

https://www.fantec.de/produkte/speicherprodukte/ssd-festplattengehaeuse/35-zoll-festplattengehaeuse/produkt/details/artikel/1479_fantec_db_alu3e/

Edit: Sorry, non English link, but I guess everyone's already familiar with German.

 

Edited January 11 by D.Draker
I guess everyone's already familiar with German.

[Dave-H]

Thanks, but if the hardware is suspect, why would it work perfectly on Windows 10?

I also have a Silicon Image 3132 card shoehorned into the system.
I can't connect to the eSATA port on that card because of physical problems (the machine's, not mine!)
I tried connecting the drive to the SATA port on that, with the same result.
I was hopeful because the BIOS on that card did report the correct disk size, which the other one doesn't, but in XP the result was the same.

So, unless I can find another driver for the 3512 card, I don't think I'm going to get anywhere.
All the later ones I've found so far are either RAID drivers, or they're 64 bit only.
I doubt partitioning the disk into smaller partitions will help if XP Disk Management can't see the drive at all.
This is what I'm seeing in Device Manager if I query the volumes on the drive.

I guess it's a no-go.

I think I can work out a hardware configuration solution, although it's not ideal.
I will have to get a suitable eSATA-SATA cable to connect the external enclosure directly to the motherboard, and get another to connect the drive that was on the motherboard SATA port to the eSATA port on the card. That should be OK, although not very physically elegant!

[D.Draker]

3 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Thanks, but if the hardware is suspect, why would it work perfectly on Windows 10?

Answered here.

https://msfn.org/board/topic/181911-read-gpt-hard-disk-on-windows-xp/?do=findComment&comment=1258067

Additionally, I had an HDD that ran with a bad SATA cable for years, it was slower, I hadn't noticed apparent errors at first, I wasn't particularly observant because the PC simply ran a surveillance camera setup, one day the HDD simply stuck at 100% load, but as soon as I replaced the cable, all got back to normal, even the disk speed increased (pointing out to the initially poor sata cable quality), and yes, when I looked at SMART, it had CRC errors shown, but corrected. 

[D.Draker]

3 hours ago, Dave-H said:

So, unless I can find another driver for the 3512 card

Try here. https://driverscollection.com/?

Input "Silicon Image 3132" in the search page, it shows 48 pages, sorry, can't go through them all.

[Dave-H]

11 hours ago, D.Draker said:

Answered here.

https://msfn.org/board/topic/181911-read-gpt-hard-disk-on-windows-xp/?do=findComment&comment=1258067

Additionally, I had an HDD that ran with a bad SATA cable for years, it was slower, I hadn't noticed apparent errors at first, I wasn't particularly observant because the PC simply ran a surveillance camera setup, one day the HDD simply stuck at 100% load, but as soon as I replaced the cable, all got back to normal, even the disk speed increased (pointing out to the initially poor sata cable quality), and yes, when I looked at SMART, it had CRC errors shown, but corrected. 

Of course, Windows 10 would almost certainly be better at intercepting and correcting errors than XP, but that's not the issue.
The warnings I mentioned in the event log on Windows 10 were a bit of a red herring which I probably shouldn't have even mentioned here, and they've gone away now anyway.

Something as fundamental as Disk Management not seeing the drive at all in one operating system and seeing it fine in another, surely can't be just down to a dodgy cable?!

[Dave-H]

11 hours ago, D.Draker said:

Try here. https://driverscollection.com/?

Input "Silicon Image 3132" in the search page, it shows 48 pages, sorry, can't go through them all.

Thanks.
I'm pretty sure that I've already looked there, but I will look again.

[D.Draker]

5 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Something as fundamental as Disk Management not seeing the drive at all in one operating system and seeing it fine in another, surely can't be just down to a dodgy cable?!

Dave, but you wrote the disk is seen fine with a direct connection. Well, technically it's not 100% direct (it's still uses a SATA cable, but another one).

[D.Draker]

5 hours ago, Dave-H said:

Thanks.
I'm pretty sure that I've already looked there, but I will look again.

You're welcome, could also try Microsoft catalogue, and don't chase the newest drivers, I still run a 2006 driver for my LAN, it's better than the one from 2009.

https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=

[Dave-H]

2 hours ago, D.Draker said:

Dave, but you wrote the disk is seen fine with a direct connection. Well, technically it's not 100% direct (it's still uses a SATA cable, but another one).

Yes indeed, but it works fine with the eSATA/Interface card route too in Windows 10.
That surely means that the hardware is physically capable of supporting the disk fully, the only difference being the driver that the card is using.
It is 64bit on Windows 10, and 32bit on Windows XP, but I doubt that is the source of the problem.
The Windows 10 driver is just a later version, and maybe supports things that the XP driver does not.
That's why I'm trying to confirm that the driver I'm using on XP is indeed the very latest one available.

[Dave-H]

I've now done another test, connecting the 3TB disk directly to the SATA port on the Silicon Image 3512 card, using a different cable of course.

Exactly the same result, appears in Device Manager, but not in Disk Management, so it's not a problem just with the eSATA connection.

My conclusion is that it's not a physical limitation of the 3512 card or its cabling, as it all works fine in Windows 10, but it must be something to do with the 32 bit driver that the card is using in Windows XP. Something is getting lost, which is preventing Windows XP from seeing the disk properly.

Whether this is fixable, I don't know, but I'm not hopeful as it looks as if the driver I'm using is the last one.

[D.Draker]

On 1/11/2024 at 1:16 AM, Dave-H said:

 

 

ST3000DM001, introduced by Seagate in 2011, is the famous Deathstar v2.0. I was under the impression you knew that, didn't you, Dave?

"This particular drive model was reported to have unusually high failure rates"

"In July 2021, 9to5Mac reported that because the disk was included in the Apple Time Capsule it started to show high failure rates. The issue was caused by the parking ramp that was made out of different materials, according to the German data recovery company Datenrettung.[5]"

Class action

"In 2016, Seagate faced a class action over the failure rates of its ST3000DM001 3 TB drives.[4][6][7][8] Law firm Hagens Berman filed the lawsuit on 1 February in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, and primarily cited reliability data provided by Backblaze."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ST3000DM001

[D.Draker]

21 hours ago, Dave-H said:

I've now done another test, connecting the 3TB disk directly to the SATA port on the Silicon Image 3512 card, using a different cable of course.

Exactly the same result, appears in Device Manager, but not in Disk Management, so it's not a problem just with the eSATA connection.

I have my personal, obviously terrible experience with that drive, run from it! It works today, tomorrow it simply loses 75% of the files on it.

Dave, do you have another over 3TB disk to test, maybe?

Edit. I just found them, I still have some left in my basement, (non-functional)

Edited January 15 by D.Draker

[Dave-H]

Well all I can say is that I've been using Seagate Barracuda drives for quite some years now, and I've always found them to be very reliable.
I've certainly never had one fail.
I only ever used them as data drives, my system drives are all SSDs now of course.
Thanks for the heads up though!

[Andalu]

@Dave-H

Hi,

to have the external 3TB GPT data disk recognized via eSATA connection, if your motherboard has a free PCI Express slot, you can try a PCIEx to eSATA card equipped with the ASMedia 1061 chipset.

About the driver for this card you can download the Asmedia ASM-106x Sata controller driver package v3.3.2 or v3.3.3 and install the asahci32.sys v3.2.0 (both packages contain the identical version 3.2.0) from the "scsi" folder without doing any modifications for the .sys and .inf files.

In my system, in addition to this driver I used the disk.sys v5.2.3790.4006 and partmgr.sys v5.2.3790.4171 from Win2003, and scsiport.sys v5.1.2600.6073. The Paragon GPT driver is no longer needed.

Here is an image of my 8TB GPT data disk connected as an external drive to the eSATA port of the ASM1061 card:

On the first boot (and probably on every reboot) with the GPT disk connected, the "File System Check" screen for the GPT disk may appear. I preferred to disable permanently this check for the GPT drive (and also for all drives) by modifying the value "BootExecute" under the key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session Manager".

 

 

In addition to the above, there is also an alternative way in case you have an intel board. Below an image:

This time to get GPT disk recognition you need the driver asahci32.sys v2.0.3.1 and a small modification to the .inf file (I think no hint is needed for it :)).

In your case, no longer need for PCIEx card. A simple bracket with an eSATA port as has already been suggested to you is enough, and most likely, again, the eSATA connection should work as intended for your external GPT disk.

Obviously, a GPT data disk can be also used as internal drive connected to a free sata port.

Edited January 17 by Andalu