Not Your Typical Hard Drive Size Problem

[mattdaddym]

Hi all,

I stumbled on this site while searching for a solution to my problem. Looks like a good place So, here we go:

I have a 320GB harddrive that is only showing 128GB....STOP!!! This is not the usual problem and yes I read the thread at the top of this forum....lol.

I have two identical Western Digital 320GB harddrives. They used to work great in an adaptec usb enclosure I have that supports up to 1000GB.

I made a HUGE mistake by pluggin one of my drives into an older enclosure that I'm sure does not support 320GB (not sure exactly what it does support). Now I have a 128GB drive prompting me to format it! I was able to rescue my data with Final Data 2.0.

The problem is getting my drive back to 320GB. I have tried the Wester Digital software from there site. Windows Disk Management is a joke. Partition Magic won't even see it! This case really did a number on my drive. Nothing I use sees the free space on this drive. There must be a way! Western Digital has not responding to my request for help and so I am turning to the masses.

Anyone have any idea what I might do to locate the 200 or so GB I'm missing! Please keep in mind that it used to work, and that my computers will read a drive this size.

Thank you all...

[glc]

Have you tried zeroing it out with WD Diags? How do you have it connected and jumpered?

[mattdaddym]

Hi,

As mentioned, I have the drive enclosed in an usb enclosure. I have also slaved it to my desktop, and I have zeroed it out with WD diagnostics and run the quick and extended diagnostic with no failures. It's weird.

[glc]

Are you sure you dont have the cylinder limitation special jumper on? Remove *all* jumpers and it's a single - see what that does either in a housing or standalone on an IDE cable.

[mattdaddym]

I didn't even know a jumper could do that, but unfortunately that is not it. NOthign was jumped except when I slaved it into my desktop.

The drive was fine....and then I removed it from one case and connected it to another usb case (that I should not have connected it to), and BANG, it was immediately 128GB...switching it back to the old case or slaving it IDE does nothing.

It makes me wonder about firmware, but WD states there are no firmeware updates for newer drives.

Thanks again.

[glc]

Sounds like RMA time - the geometry is blown in the drive.

[mattdaddym]

Sucks...lol. Wish there was a way to correct it.

[glc]

That's what a warranty is for.

[mattdaddym]

Hi all, well it has been awhile but the people at WD finally assisted me in fixing my goof up. As we already figured, I overwrote something on the harddrive which is in a place that normally isnt written to. Anyway, here it is;

WD does have a utility for resetting the size of a hard drive, but the catch is this. You can only find it on the DataLifeGuard tools version 11.0. They removed this tools from later versions (which was what I was using).

There is an option you can go to for resetting the size and when you get the the page where it indicates the size, just go with the defaults....and tah-dah....it works.

I hope this helps someone who maybe will make the same crazy mistake I did. Rare problem, and completely my fault. Anyway, problem solved.