Samsung hdd problem

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  • Start date Start date
A

andrei.husar

i got a samsung SV0411N hdd, and the problem is that it only sees 5 g
from 40. I've tryed everything I know and any of my friends know. d
not know what to do with it. could use some help, cause i do not wan
to throw it away. the last thing that i can do is to find out th
exact number of cylinders, numbers of heads, and everything else, t
fix it from BIOS. help pleas
 
Are you using an "old" motherboard whose BIOS CANNOT recognize a harddrive
larger than 5 GB? Very possibly. You may need a more modern motherboard.
 
i got a samsung SV0411N hdd, and the problem is that it only sees 5 gb
from 40. I've tryed everything I know and any of my friends know. do
not know what to do with it. could use some help, cause i do not want
to throw it away. the last thing that i can do is to find out the
exact number of cylinders, numbers of heads, and everything else, to
fix it from BIOS. help please
Click to expand...

You can try http://tinyurl.com/4kvgg and choose Specifications. They list
a number of Samsung hard drives and their specs including cylinders, heads,
etc. Your BIOS may not accept the settings though and then your only other
options are a controller card (best) or a software overlay (ok) to get the
computer to recognize the full hard drive space.

Good luck.

Patty
 
[email protected] said:
i got a samsung SV0411N hdd, and the problem is that it only sees 5 gb
from 40. I've tryed everything I know and any of my friends know. do
not know what to do with it. could use some help, cause i do not want
to throw it away. the last thing that i can do is to find out the
exact number of cylinders, numbers of heads, and everything else, to
fix it from BIOS. help please
Click to expand...

I've had a Maxtor drive failure, where the controller claimed the
disk was 10GB, when it was actually 40GB. It was a symptom that
the controller could no longer get critical information from the
platters, implying a serious problem.

There are certain "magic" size limits, that have occurred as drive
capacities have grown over the years. The 5GB number does not
ring any bells, and this sound more like the controller cannot
tell how many platters it has any more. This article lists
some of the "magic" sizes:

http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/Large-Disk-4.html

Paul
 
I've had a Maxtor drive failure, where the controller claimed the
disk was 10GB, when it was actually 40GB. It was a symptom that
the controller could no longer get critical information from the
platters, implying a serious problem.

There are certain "magic" size limits, that have occurred as drive
capacities have grown over the years. The 5GB number does not
ring any bells, and this sound more like the controller cannot
tell how many platters it has any more. This article lists
some of the "magic" sizes:

http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/linux/Large-Disk-4.html

Paul
Click to expand...

I just put a new WD 80GB hard drive in an older system. The BIOS reported
the size as 14GB. The hard drive is fine and with the WD DataLifeguard
Overlay, the drive is reported correctly in the OS as 80GB. Why did the
BIOS choose 14GB? Since there is no 14GB "magic" size limit, it may be
picking up some kind of cylinder/head reading from the hard drive, and
being confused is reporting what it thinks it should be with those
readings. That's all I can figure. We've determined that the BIOS more
than likely has a limitation of 32GB, but I don't think that it means that
it will report every hard drive over 32GB as that amount. You can use an
alternate jumper setting on most drives to force it to read 32GB, which is
why I think that have that jumper setting available.

Patty
 
Patty said:
I just put a new WD 80GB hard drive in an older system. The BIOS reported
the size as 14GB. The hard drive is fine and with the WD DataLifeguard
Overlay, the drive is reported correctly in the OS as 80GB. Why did the
BIOS choose 14GB? Since there is no 14GB "magic" size limit, it may be
picking up some kind of cylinder/head reading from the hard drive, and
being confused is reporting what it thinks it should be with those
readings. That's all I can figure. We've determined that the BIOS more
than likely has a limitation of 32GB, but I don't think that it means that
it will report every hard drive over 32GB as that amount. You can use an
alternate jumper setting on most drives to force it to read 32GB, which is
why I think that have that jumper setting available.

Patty
Click to expand...

Patty, you don't mention what OS you were using with the 80gig, but be aware
that older versions of the Fdisk utility had a 64gig bug where if the drive
was larger than 64gig, the system would report the size as the difference
between the size and 64gig. 80gig - 64gig = 78gig

Newer versions of Fdisk don't have that problem anymore.
 
Patty, you don't mention what OS you were using with the 80gig, but be aware
that older versions of the Fdisk utility had a 64gig bug where if the drive
was larger than 64gig, the system would report the size as the difference
between the size and 64gig. 80gig - 64gig = 78gig

Newer versions of Fdisk don't have that problem anymore.
Click to expand...

I'm using Windows XP Pro SP2. I'm wondering about your math though...
80-64=16 in my book. ;) There is a discrepency about how hard drive size
is reported in any case. The manufacturer reports the size in decimal
numbers and calls it an "80GB" HD, but when you format it, it's less,
because 1 kilobyte is not really 1,000 bytes, it is actually 1,024 bytes
because it's binary. As hard drives get larger, the difference shows up
even more. In my case, XP Pro reports the size to be a little less than
80GB but it's because of the conversion from decimal to binary that makes
the difference. My other system with a "120GB" hard drive, XP Pro reports
approx. 111.78GB of available space on the full drive.

Patty
 
Patty said:
I'm using Windows XP Pro SP2. I'm wondering about your math though...
80-64=16 in my book. ;) There is a discrepency about how hard drive size
is reported in any case. The manufacturer reports the size in decimal
numbers and calls it an "80GB" HD, but when you format it, it's less,
because 1 kilobyte is not really 1,000 bytes, it is actually 1,024 bytes
because it's binary. As hard drives get larger, the difference shows up
even more. In my case, XP Pro reports the size to be a little less than
80GB but it's because of the conversion from decimal to binary that makes
the difference. My other system with a "120GB" hard drive, XP Pro reports
approx. 111.78GB of available space on the full drive.
Click to expand...

Yes, I realized 80-64 is actually 16 rather than the 14 you mentioned, but I
chalked up the difference possibly to the difference between binary Gig and
Decimal Gig.

Regardless, it was just a guess, but now these tired old eyes notice that
you had said it was the BIOS that was reporting the size error, and the OS
was reporting it correctly.

My mistake. Just chalk it up to yet another 'Senior Moment' as they say.
 
Yes, I realized 80-64 is actually 16 rather than the 14 you mentioned, but I
chalked up the difference possibly to the difference between binary Gig and
Decimal Gig.

Regardless, it was just a guess, but now these tired old eyes notice that
you had said it was the BIOS that was reporting the size error, and the OS
was reporting it correctly.

My mistake. Just chalk it up to yet another 'Senior Moment' as they say.
Click to expand...

I still don't get the 80gig being reported as 78gig. That's only a 2gig
difference. How does the 14-16 come into play? 80 - 64 would not equal 78
even in binary.

Yep, BIOS reporting weird sizes, not the OS. OS reports fine after using
an overlay. OS should also report the correct size if using an expansion
controller card as well, but I haven't had a chance to try one of those
yet.

Those Senior Moments sure get ya sometimes don't they? ;)

Patty
 
Best idea, don't buy samsung HDD's

WD-JB versions or Seagate drives do better than most others
 
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