Maxtor HD 20 GB squeezed to 10 GB by OEM, how to unsqueeze?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Ron
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R

Ron

Hi,

A while ago I bought a Maxtor HD, 20 GB. No matter what I tried I couldn't get more as 10 GB out of it.

When I asked Maxtor they replied:

"Some OEMs (eg. Compaq, Dell, etc.) have the option to change the capacity of drives to suit their particular needs. If an OEM has
sold you this drive as a higher capacity drive then you should take it up with them to get it replaced. If they sold it to you as a
smaller drive or in replacement for a smaller drive, then it has the correct capacity and can not be exchanged."

I tried low-level formatting with MaxBlast but it didn't help. Offcourse I would like to have the higher capacity. Does somebody
know a trick?

Thanks in Advance.

Ron
 
first time I have seen this one.....I'm not sure how you would go about doing that...interesting. What does the label say the
capacity is?
 
What size does the bios think it is?
Ron said:
Hi,

A while ago I bought a Maxtor HD, 20 GB. No matter what I tried I couldn't get more as 10 GB out of it.

When I asked Maxtor they replied:

"Some OEMs (eg. Compaq, Dell, etc.) have the option to change the capacity
Click to expand...
of drives to suit their particular needs. If an OEM has
sold you this drive as a higher capacity drive then you should take it up
Click to expand...
with them to get it replaced. If they sold it to you as a
smaller drive or in replacement for a smaller drive, then it has the
Click to expand...
correct capacity and can not be exchanged."
I tried low-level formatting with MaxBlast but it didn't help. Offcourse I
Click to expand...
would like to have the higher capacity. Does somebody
 
The model number is: 2B020H1, a Fireball 541 DX.

Officially LBA is 39102336 but MaxBlast reports only half of that. Which makes 10 GB. I can manually enter BIOS-settings whatever I
want but I won't get more than 10 GB.
 
When auto-detecting the BIOS always reports 10 GB. I can manually enter whatever I want but I never get more than 10 GB.
 
Some Maxtor drives have a set of pins that you can jumper together to limit
the drive to a certain size,
These jumpers are usually in the same place where you set the
Master/Slave/CableSelect settings
(on the end of the drive between the power and data connectors)
--jmnugent





Ron said:
Hi,

A while ago I bought a Maxtor HD, 20 GB. No matter what I tried I couldn't get more as 10 GB out of it.

When I asked Maxtor they replied:

"Some OEMs (eg. Compaq, Dell, etc.) have the option to change the capacity
Click to expand...
of drives to suit their particular needs. If an OEM has
sold you this drive as a higher capacity drive then you should take it up
Click to expand...
with them to get it replaced. If they sold it to you as a
smaller drive or in replacement for a smaller drive, then it has the
Click to expand...
correct capacity and can not be exchanged."
I tried low-level formatting with MaxBlast but it didn't help. Offcourse I
Click to expand...
would like to have the higher capacity. Does somebody
 
Ron, if you have it installed as a slave (no jumpers) and the bios says it's
10 gb then it would appear that it is a 10gb drive and you got screwed.
I've installed 3 20gb Maxtors and quite a few larger ones, never had any
problems with them. I can't imagine anything that you could do that would
change what the bios sees it as and that is what really matters.

Ron said:
When auto-detecting the BIOS always reports 10 GB. I can manually enter
Click to expand...
whatever I want but I never get more than 10 GB.
 
Norm said:
Ron, if you have it installed as a slave (no jumpers) and the bios says it's
10 gb then it would appear that it is a 10gb drive and you got screwed.
Click to expand...

Unless the BIOS cannot detect larger drives. In which case he needs a
BIOS update or a drive overlay. Your comment about jumpers is a good
one and he should check that the drive does not permit jumpering to a
smaller size which could be (however unlikely) contributing to the problem.

I've installed 3 20gb Maxtors and quite a few larger ones, never had any
problems with them. I can't imagine anything that you could do that would
change what the bios sees it as and that is what really matters.



whatever I want but I never get more than 10 GB.
Click to expand...


--

Are you registered as a bone marrow donor? You regenerate what you
donate. You are offered the chance to donate only if you match a person
on the recipient list. Visit www.marrow.org or call your local Red Cross
and ask about registering to be a bone marrow donor.

spam trap: replace shyah_right! with hotmail when replying
 
Ron, that drive does in fact have a CLS (Cylinder Limitation Jumper) jumper.
Just go to the Maxtor website, find your model number and you can look for
yourself. That might explain what is happening.
Ron said:
Hi,

A while ago I bought a Maxtor HD, 20 GB. No matter what I tried I couldn't get more as 10 GB out of it.

When I asked Maxtor they replied:

"Some OEMs (eg. Compaq, Dell, etc.) have the option to change the capacity
Click to expand...
of drives to suit their particular needs. If an OEM has
sold you this drive as a higher capacity drive then you should take it up
Click to expand...
with them to get it replaced. If they sold it to you as a
smaller drive or in replacement for a smaller drive, then it has the
Click to expand...
correct capacity and can not be exchanged."
I tried low-level formatting with MaxBlast but it didn't help. Offcourse I
Click to expand...
would like to have the higher capacity. Does somebody
 
Sorry I didn't tell earlier, but what Maxtor said makes perfectly sense because there were three Compaq "spare part nr ...
" -stickers on the drive.

Tried LBA, CHS, Large and all that stuff and also the cylinder-limitation jumper but nothing helped.
 
Unless the BIOS cannot detect larger drives. In which case he needs a
BIOS update or a drive overlay.
Click to expand...

He's already tried using Maxblast which would've detected this when it
polled the BIOS and HDD.

--
________________________
Conor Turton
(e-mail address removed)
ICQ:31909763
________________________
 
Hi,

A while ago I bought a Maxtor HD, 20 GB. No matter what I tried I couldn't get more as 10 GB out of it.

When I asked Maxtor they replied:

"Some OEMs (eg. Compaq, Dell, etc.) have the option to change the capacity of drives to suit their particular needs. If an OEM has
sold you this drive as a higher capacity drive then you should take it up with them to get it replaced. If they sold it to you as a
smaller drive or in replacement for a smaller drive, then it has the correct capacity and can not be exchanged."

I tried low-level formatting with MaxBlast but it didn't help. Offcourse I would like to have the higher capacity. Does somebody
know a trick?
Click to expand...

I'm not up to date with everything, but some years ago, any attempt to
lowlevel format a hd always reduced the capacity permanently, and
basicly you were f****d. :-(

I think the reason was supposed to be, that the hd couldn't llformat
itself at the factory llformatted density.
I've been brainwashed into that lowlevel format is a strict nono. Last
resort at the best. :-(

What has the *MaxBlast' manual to say about it?


ancra
 
I'm not up to date with everything, but some years ago, any attempt to
lowlevel format a hd always reduced the capacity permanently, and
basicly you were f****d. :-(

I think the reason was supposed to be, that the hd couldn't llformat
itself at the factory llformatted density.
I've been brainwashed into that lowlevel format is a strict nono. Last
resort at the best. :-(
Click to expand...
Brainwashed is right. Don't know how many years you're going back but I
used to recover old 500MB drives with low level formats.


--
________________________
Conor Turton
(e-mail address removed)
ICQ:31909763
________________________
 
Its something to do with the way you formatted it.

Something about the FAT (file allocation tables) or some sh*t like.

Try reformatting with some options... type format /help for more info.

This is just a guess by the way.
 
Let me ask a stupid question that you've probably already answered in a
previous message.
You say you can't get more than 10gig out of the drive?

What are the odds that you're running into the 8gig BIOS limitation od early
MB's?

did you buy the HD as a brand new drive? Is it under warranty? did the
seller guarenty the drive?

Can you compare the heads-cylinders that your Max-Blast software 'sees' with
the drive specs. Are they the same? Perhaps a head has gone bad reducing the
capacity?

What is the model of the drive.

I've seen drives that have a few jumpers that are used to impose some
limitations once in a while.

Jumper that limits capacity to 32gig
jumper to limit size to 2gig
jumper to limit cylinder count to 1024

I've never run into a drive that was intentionally reduced in capacity by
50% by the vendor.
 
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