Experimenting with GPT and Hard Disks >2TB under WinXP

[Multibooter]

The focus of this topic is on experiences, experiments, issues and solutions under Windows XP; related postings about other old operating systems are also welcome. Postings here may also be about specific hardware, with the objective to identify hardware "compatible with GPT HDDs >2TB under WinXP". Please share your experiences!

Edited June 30 by Multibooter

[Multibooter]

Experiment 1: Exsys EX-3595 ExpressCard under WinXP

NOTE: 2 screenshots, originally in this posting, were deleted on 4Aug2025 because of limited upload space. The posting with these 2 screenshots can be seen at https://web.archive.org/web/20250804204137/https://msfn.org/board/topic/186840-experimenting-with-gpt-and-hard-disks-2tb-under-winxp/#comment-1280846

I was looking for a SATA ExpressCard (i.e. for a laptop) which would be "compatible with GPT HDDs >2TB under WinXP"
Cixert in his posting of 23Jan2025 https://msfn.org/board/topic/181911-read-gpt-hard-disk-on-windows-xp-solved/page/28/#findComment-1277131 had asked chatGPT about SATA cards with WinXP drivers and supporting MBR >2TB.
chatGPT indicated that Marvell 88SE9230 and ASMedia ASM1061 have drivers for Windows XP and suggested 4 sources for buying the PCIe cards (i.e. for a desktop).

I had bought the Exsys EX-3595 ExpressCard because I have been very satisfied with the Exsys EX-1093 (PCI) and the Exsys EX-11494-2 (PCIe) USB 3.0 cards, both Renesas chips with WinXP drivers, in my desktops.

The Exsys EX-3595 ExpressCard contains a slightly earlier Marvell chip 88SE91xx, most likely 88SE9123. The Marvell Storage Utility under WinXP indicates Device ID 9123. The Device Instance ID displayed by WinXP Device Manager is PCI\VEN_1B4B&DEV_9123&SUBSYS_91231B4B&REV_11\5&63CF550&0&0048F0

The EX-3595 ExpressCard comes with a driver CD which contains a working WinXP driver, WinXP Device Manager indicates:
Marvell 91xx SATA 3G Controller, Driver Provider: Marvell Inc., Driver Date: 11/6/2009, Driver version 1.0.0.1030, Digital Signer: Microsoft Windows Hardware Compatibility Publisher

I have connected the EX-3595 ExpressCard (i.e. for a laptop) in an old desktop with an Asus P5PE-VM motherboard, which has only PCI slots, no PCIe slots, as follows:
- in PCI slot: StarTech PCI to PCI Express adapter card
- in PCI Express adapter card: the PCIe connector of an SCM ICS-D1 PCIe-to-ExpressCard adapter (has a front panel like a floppy drive) - NOTE: this PCIe-to-ExpressCard adapter supports BOTH USB-based ExpressCards and PCI Express-based ExpressCards (most ExpressCards, like the EX-3595 SATA card, are PCI-Express based)
- in the front panel of the PCIe-to-ExpressCard adapter: the Exsys EX-3595 SATA ExpressCard
- in the Exsys EX-3595 SATA ExpressCard: an eSATA cable to the eSATA connector of a Sharkoon Combo eSATA/USB 2.0 HDD docking station
- in the eSATA Sharkoon docking station: a 4TB Toshiba HDWD240 HDD, GPT with 4 partitions, filled with data beyond the 2.2TB boundary

In short: PCI slot => PCI-to-PCIe adapter => PCIe-to-ExpressCard adapter => eSATA docking station => 4TB GPT HDD

The BIOS utility of the Asus P5PE-VM motherboard (has an Intel ICH5) does not have a selection to set onboard SATA to AHCI Mode or IDE Mode; instead in Main tab -> IDE Configuration -> Onboard IDE Operate Mode: -> set to Compatible Mode and IDE Port Setting: -> set to Primary P-ATA+S-ATA. The ICH5 was the first Intel chipset with onboard SATA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_chipsets

During POST, after pressing Ctrl-M, the Marvell BIOS Setup menu comes up displaying Configure SATA As: AHCI Mode
[The PCIe Speed Rate is displayed as 2.5Gbps, not 5Gbps, probably because of the ExpressCard is ultimately connected to a PCI slot on the motherboard, not to a PCIe slot.]

Unfortunately, the Marvell BIOS Setup menu of the EX-3595 [Marvell 88SE9123 chip] canNOT Configure SATA As: IDE Mode.

Device Manager of Windows XP displays the 4TB GPT HDD as Unreadable, Capacity: 0MB and the 4TB HDD is not displayed by MS Disk Management.

The Marvell BIOS Setup menu indicates that a 4TB HDD (3,815,447MB) is connected. So this older Marvell 88SE9123 chip works with HDDs > 2TB [chatGPT had only found the more recent Marvell 88SE9215 and Marvell 88SE9230 chips], but not under WinXP.

When I insert a 320GB HDD with 9 primary GPT partitions into the docking station, with the same hardware arrangement as above, WinXP displays and accesses the HDD OK with the Paragon GPT driver. So the issue with the 4TB HDD under WinXP is caused by the AHCI Mode setting of the EX-3595. The Paragon GPT driver seems to work OK in AHCI Mode with HDDs up to 2TB and seems to require IDE Mode (or no boot) for larger HDDs.

"... 9120 and 9123 do have those details while being just AHCI" ...
"... The RAID mode can be selected from the same screen, from "Configure SATA as:" field, by playing with Tab/Enter or by reading the bottom suggestions.
from: https://winraid.level1techs.com/t/discussion-firmware-update-of-the-marvell-91xx-sata-controller/30492?page=13
[OT: the web page displays OK under WinXP in Mypal68, but not OK in New Moon or Serpent]

If I interpret the comments at winraid correctly, maybe SATA cards with the more recent Marvell 88SE9235 chip can be set to IDE Mode in the Marvell BIOS Setup menu, while the older Marvell 88SE9123 chip is only AHCI??? I have not found an ExpressCard (i.e. for a laptop) with the more recent Marvell 88SE9235 chip.

Flashing SATA cards to IDE Mode, if possible, is perhaps a way to make SATA cards, which do not have a physical switch for AHCI Boot/No Boot/IDE Boot, compatible with GPT HDDs >2TB under WinXP. Maybe somebody else can experiment with flashing SATA cards to IDE mode.

It looks like laptops cannot access, under WinXP, files on a 4TB HDD. In other words: files which you wish to access on a laptop under WinXP have to be an a 2TB or less HDD, NOT on e.g. a 4TB HDD. This limitation reduces substantially, at least for me, the usefulness of HDDs >2TB.

I will return the EX-3595 ExpressCard in the next 2 days. QUESTION: Any ideas about how to set the EX-3595 ExpressCard to IDE Mode?

Edited August 4 by Multibooter

[Multibooter]

Experiment 2: How to reset the SMART values of a 4TB Toshiba HDD

I was copying stuff under WinXP onto a Toshiba 4TB HDD in an external docking station. By mistake I pressed the wrong switch on the power strip and switched OFF the power supply of the external docking station, while the computer was writing to the 4TB HDD in it. After 3 seconds I noticed my mistake and switched the power supply ON again.

WinXP on the desktop computer quickly froze and I had to pull the plug of the desktop computer. The activity light of the docking station with the 4TB HDD, however, kept on flashing (separate power supply), even after the desktop computer was powered off. I let the docking station flash for about 15 minutes, then powered off the docking station.

I made several attempts to find out whether the 4TB Toshiba HDD was still OK
1) When I restarted the computer, with the 4TB HDD in the docking station, connected as before to onboard SATA, I got the BIOS message: "S.M.A.R.T Status Bad, Backup and Replace, Press F1 to Resume".
2) I then connected the external docking station to the ASM1061 SATA PCIe card set to IDE Mode. When booting I got the error msg by the ASM1061 card: Contact manufacturer.
3) I then booted the desktop computer with the Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 and Acronis Disk Director 12.5 boot CDs (both Linux). The 4TB Toshiba HDD was NOT displayed anymore in their partitioning windows. BRICKED?

4) I then connected the external docking station with the 4TB HDD to the eSATA CardBus card in my old Inspiron 7500 laptop (Pentium III 650MHz, Phoenix BIOS of 1999, no detection of SMART values), and low and behold, the Acronis Disk Director 12.5 boot CD (Linux) displayed OK the 4TB HDD. I selected "Clean up" in the Acronis menu to set the 4TB to uninitialized. I then initialized, still with the Acronis boot CD, the 4TB HDD to GPT. My 25-year-old laptop can sometimes do more than a more recent desktop!

The 4TB Toshiba HDD was displayed under WinXP by Hard Disk Sentinel as "BAD". The power failure while writing had also caused a reset of Power on time to "0 days 0 hours" and the Total start/stop count to 1.

Hard Disk Sentinel has in its Information tab a Short Self-test and an Extended Self-test. I ran the Short Self-test, message after 2 minutes: HDD is OK, then ran the Extended Self-test, message after 3 minutes: HDD is OK. BUT: the health of the 4TB HDD was still displayed as 0%, with failure predicted. After these two OK tests I had my doubts about the "BAD" SMART status of the nearly new 4TB Toshiba HDD.

I low-level formatted with my old Inspiron laptop under WinXP the 3626.0GB of the 4TB Toshiba HDD, with HDD Low Level Format Tool 4.50. LLFMT of this "BAD" 4TB HDD took 13:34:03 hours at 82.7MB/s, no error messages and the formatting time and speed were about the same as when I had low-level formatted the 4TB HDD fresh out of the box. Extended Self-test OK, LLFMT OK and at the same speed as when the 4TB HDD was new. The 4TB HDD seemed OK to me.

I decided not to run with Hard Disk Sentinel the -> Disk -> Surface test -> Reinitialize disk surface on the 4TB HDD because this would have taken 5+ days. ["Overwrites the disk surface with special initialization pattern to restore the sectors to default (empty) status and reads back sector contents, to verify if they are accessible and consistent. Forces the analysis of any weak sectors and verifies any hidden problems and fixes them by reallocation of bad sectors (this is drive regeneration)."]

For resetting SMART I used the selections "Clear defect reassign list" and "SMART Reset Attribute Values" of DRevitalize v3.32 (DOS version, 12Jul2019) on a FreeDOS boot floppy. The initial attempt briefly displayed "ERROR" in the Result column, after repeated attempts "SUCESS" was displayed, maybe several sub-HDDs are inside the 4TB Toshiba HDD and required multiple attempts, no idea. In any case the SMART values were reset, no more "BAD" flag. The "BAD" Raw Read Error Rate, Power on time, Total Start/Stop and other SMART values were reset. The Paragon Hard Disk Manager 15 and Acronis Disk Director 12.5 boot CDs in the desktop computer displayed again the 4TB GPT HDD.

After having reset the SMART values I re-ran the Extended Self-test, which took nearly 8 hours instead of the 3 minutes with the previous Extended Self-test. Message: Extended Self-test Successfully Completed.

I have put a hand-written sticker "Self-refurbished OK" on the 4TB Toshiba HDD.

DRevitalize v3.32 is a special build for WinXP, the preceding v3.31 and the subsequent versions require Windows Vista. The ability to handle Toshiba HDDs was added in this v3.32. DRevitalize v3.32 runs OK on a 4TB GPT HDD under WinXP with GPT Loader installed. The demo version 3.32 can be downloaded at https://drevitalize.com/current/Drevitalize332demo.exe

Unfortunately the feature "SMART Reset Attribute Values" has been removed from the Windows demo version 3.32 and "license ordering is no longer available. Project is on hold" https://drevitalize.com/order/ The DOS version on the FreeDOS boot floppy, however, CAN reset the SMART values of a 4TB Toshiba GPT HDD, but is otherwise limited and cannot display the SMART values.

DRevitalize v3.32 is of 12Jul2019 and still worked OK on the Toshiba 4TB GPT, manufactured in December 2023.
DRevitalize v3.32 is a little jewel and has many other uses. Easy to use, highly recommended.

Anybody here has experience with the non-demo Windows installer version of DRevitalize v3.32 ?

Edited 59 minutes ago by Multibooter