Maxtor Diamondmax Plus 40 reporting wrong SIZE - CRAZY problem

[Hellbore]

I have a Maxtor 54098U8. In some cases the drive's size is detected
incorrectly. Every motherboard I have tried putting it in detects it
as the correct size, 40 gigabytes, and detects it as an LBA mode
drive. I have tested it in Athlon XP boards and Pentium 4 boards. I
have another drive, a 120 gig drive, that works fine in my PC, so
let's establish first that the motherboard is NOT the problem. The
BIOS settings are not the problem. I have manually entered the CHS
info, picked LBA, let it autodetect, etc. Every combination I try
yields the same results.

Bios detects it as 40 gigabytes.
Windows XP install detects the drive as 8064 megabytes.
Windows 98SE Fdisk detects the drive as 40 gigabytes.
the latest Redhat Linux install detects it as 8064 megabytes.
Partition Magic 8 detects it as 40 gigabytes.
Maxtor's PowerMax detects it as 40 gigabytes, LBA is 80 million which
is what it should come up as. Also ran all the Powermax tests and it
passed every test.

For some reason, PowerMax shows the serial number being M0000000 and
there is no serial number on the drive. It always worked before
though, just lately I have had problems.

I already tried using Maxtor's low-level format. It took like 10
hours and didn't make any difference.

There is a jumper that limits the drive's size, and it is not on. I
have never changed the jumpers and it used to work. The only jumper
on is the Master jumper.

I spent an hour on the phone with Maxtor tech support. They finally
gave up and said they could not figure out what was wrong. I asked if
there was a firmware update I could download and they said no. I
believe this is a firmware problem maybe. They said they would just
replace the drive but guess what? No serial on the drive, so they
won't RMA it. Later I ran Powermax and it came up with the serial
number M0000000. Doesn't look like a valid serial number to me.

They said it was crazy because the bios was detecting it right,
windows 98SE detecting it right, but XP and Linux detecting it wrong.
They said that Windows 98SE only asks the BIOS how big the drive is,
while XP and Linux ask the drive how big it is. So maybe this is why
it is behaving different.

If anyone has any idea how I could fix this or if it is even fixable,
I'd appreciate it.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a Maxtor 54098U8. In some cases the drive's size is detected
incorrectly. Every motherboard I have tried putting it in detects it
as the correct size, 40 gigabytes, and detects it as an LBA mode
drive. I have tested it in Athlon XP boards and Pentium 4 boards. I
have another drive, a 120 gig drive, that works fine in my PC, so
let's establish first that the motherboard is NOT the problem. The
BIOS settings are not the problem. I have manually entered the CHS
info, picked LBA, let it autodetect, etc. Every combination I try
yields the same results.

Bios detects it as 40 gigabytes.
Windows XP install detects the drive as 8064 megabytes.
Windows 98SE Fdisk detects the drive as 40 gigabytes.
the latest Redhat Linux install detects it as 8064 megabytes.
Partition Magic 8 detects it as 40 gigabytes.
Maxtor's PowerMax detects it as 40 gigabytes, LBA is 80 million which
is what it should come up as. Also ran all the Powermax tests and it
passed every test.

For some reason, PowerMax shows the serial number being M0000000 and
there is no serial number on the drive. It always worked before
though, just lately I have had problems.

I already tried using Maxtor's low-level format. It took like 10
hours and didn't make any difference.

There is a jumper that limits the drive's size, and it is not on. I
have never changed the jumpers and it used to work. The only jumper
on is the Master jumper.

I spent an hour on the phone with Maxtor tech support. They finally
gave up and said they could not figure out what was wrong. I asked if
there was a firmware update I could download and they said no. I
believe this is a firmware problem maybe. They said they would just
replace the drive but guess what? No serial on the drive, so they
won't RMA it. Later I ran Powermax and it came up with the serial
number M0000000. Doesn't look like a valid serial number to me.

They said it was crazy because the bios was detecting it right,
windows 98SE detecting it right, but XP and Linux detecting it wrong.
They said that Windows 98SE only asks the BIOS how big the drive is,
while XP and Linux ask the drive how big it is. So maybe this is why
it is behaving different.

If anyone has any idea how I could fix this or if it is even fixable,
I'd appreciate it.

There have been some reports of Maxtor drives behaving like
that. They appear to get the basic size and serial number etc
off the platters and dont always succeed in doing that correctly.

I'd RMA the drive and dont let them cop out and refuse to
allow it to be returned because it doesnt report the ELECTRONIC
serial number. Surely the drive has a physical serial number on
a label on the physical drive doesnt it ?

 

[Hellbore]

There have been some reports of Maxtor drives behaving like
that. They appear to get the basic size and serial number etc
off the platters and dont always succeed in doing that correctly.

I'd RMA the drive and dont let them cop out and refuse to
allow it to be returned because it doesnt report the ELECTRONIC
serial number. Surely the drive has a physical serial number on
a label on the physical drive doesnt it ?

I am working with them on this right now. There is NO serial number
anywhere on the drive. It's crazy. They had me fax them images of
all sides of the drive so they can scrutinize it for a serial number,
but we have already looked. They are going to try and identify it.
There is no serial number where you usually see it on the top label.

In fact, the top label is very strange and a little suspicious. It
doesn't say Maxtor on it! If you want to see, look, this is what the
label shows:

http://cleedo.com/maxtor.jpg

Any ideas? And if data is being read off the platters, how can I
change this? I already did the full low-level format using Maxtor's
utility.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

I have a Maxtor 54098U8. In some cases the drive's size is detected
incorrectly. Every motherboard I have tried putting it in detects it
as the correct size, 40 gigabytes,

and detects it as an LBA mode drive.

BIOS sets up CHS translation like that.

I have tested it in Athlon XP boards and Pentium 4 boards. I
have another drive, a 120 gig drive, that works fine in my PC, so
let's establish first that the motherboard is NOT the problem. The
BIOS settings are not the problem. I have manually entered the CHS
info, picked LBA, let it autodetect, etc. Every combination I try
yields the same results.

Bios detects it as 40 gigabytes.

Windows XP install detects the drive as 8064 megabytes.

That is the CHS limit (or at least very close to it).
Drive or partition?

Windows 98SE Fdisk detects the drive as 40 gigabytes.
the latest Redhat Linux install detects it as 8064 megabytes.

Again, drive or partition?

Partition Magic 8 detects it as 40 gigabytes.
Maxtor's PowerMax detects it as 40 gigabytes,

LBA is 80 million

Largest Logical Block Address (sector number), presumably.

which is what it should come up as. Also ran all the Powermax tests and
it passed every test.

For some reason, PowerMax shows the serial number being M0000000
and there is no serial number on the drive. It always worked before
though, just lately I have had problems.

I already tried using Maxtor's low-level format. It took like 10
hours and didn't make any difference.

10 hours? That is excessive.

There is a jumper that limits the drive's size, and it is not on. I
have never changed the jumpers and it used to work. The only jumper
on is the Master jumper.

If I summarize the above I see only install apps seeing a smaller drive.
Bios and drive parameter based utilities appear to see it correct.
I would expect the installation apps to look for partitioning and adjust
accordingly. Hence the question about the drive being partitioned or not.

 

[Rod Speed]

I am working with them on this right now. There is NO serial number
anywhere on the drive. It's crazy. They had me fax them images of
all sides of the drive so they can scrutinize it for a serial number,
but we have already looked. They are going to try and identify it.
There is no serial number where you usually see it on the top label.

In fact, the top label is very strange and a little suspicious.
It doesn't say Maxtor on it! If you want to see, look, this
is what the label shows:

Any ideas?

It appears to be an OEM drive.

They may well decide that it isnt covered by warranty with them
and that the warranty is the responsibility of whoever sold it etc.

And if data is being read off the platters, how can I change this?

You cant basically.

I already did the full low-level format using Maxtor's utility.

Which doesnt erase that data.