wd600bb drive geometry

[Ben Fitzgerald]

Hi

I have a gigabyte ga-6bxe with bios version f3a(beta).

I have a wd600bb hard drive but the bios only detects about
35G. It's a 60G drive.

I need to set the geometry but I don't know what to put in,
especially as I don't understand two of the columns, precomp
and lz.

Can anyone help me out with the values for:

Capacity
Cyl
Head
Precomp
LZ
Sectors

If you need more info, just say.

Thanks in advance for any help,

Ben

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a gigabyte ga-6bxe with bios version f3a(beta).

I have a wd600bb hard drive but the bios
only detects about 35G. It's a 60G drive.

I need to set the geometry

Nope, you should be using the AUTO settings.

You may need to flash the bios with
a version that supports larger drives,
http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/BIOS/BIOS_GA-6BXE.htm

but I don't know what to put in,

You shouldnt be using that approach at all.

especially as I don't understand two
of the columns, precomp and lz.

Those are two obsolete values that modern drives ignore completely.

 

[Rod Speed]

I have a gigabyte ga-6bxe with bios version f3a(beta).

That bios does have support for large drives.
Maybe try F2 in case its a dud beta.
http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/BIOS/BIOS_GA-6BXE.htm

I have a wd600bb hard drive but the bios
only detects about 35G. It's a 60G drive.

I need to set the geometry

Nope, you should be using the AUTO settings.

but I don't know what to put in,

You shouldnt be using that approach at all.

especially as I don't understand two
of the columns, precomp and lz.

Those are two obsolete values that modern drives ignore completely.

Can anyone help me out with the values for:

If you need more info, just say.

Thanks in advance for any help,

If using AUTO doesnt work for some reason,
try starting from scratch using clearhdd from
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/clearhdd.htm
and fdisk and format the drive again after using that. You may have got
dud geometry details into the MBR by fiddling around with those CHS values.

 

[Ben]

That bios does have support for large drives.
Maybe try F2 in case its a dud beta.
http://www.giga-byte.com/Motherboard/Support/BIOS/BIOS_GA-6BXE.htm

Rod

Thanks for posting.

I flashed the beta version and when it didn't report the full drive
size I tried to flash the previous version, F2, but it wouldn't start.
Is it possible to go back to an earlier bios flash?

Nope, you should be using the AUTO settings.

I realise this is the preferred approach, but it simply
does not work. The bios reports the drive to be about 35G

If using AUTO doesnt work for some reason,
try starting from scratch using clearhdd from
http://www.samsung.com/Products/HardDiskDrive/utilities/clearhdd.htm
and fdisk and format the drive again after using that. You may have got
dud geometry details into the MBR by fiddling around with those CHS values.

I didn't fiddle with the geom values to start with, but it may be that
installing the hdd onto a motherboard that couldn't take it (when it
had the
old bios), set the geom incorrectly and now the new bios can't correct
that without a low-level wipe?

I will try this out as there's not much to loose!

I'll let you know what happens. In the meantime, if anyone else has
other
suggestions, please let me know.

Thanks,

Ben

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanks for posting.

No problem.

I flashed the beta version and when it didn't report the full drive
size I tried to flash the previous version, F2, but it wouldn't start.
Is it possible to go back to an earlier bios flash?
Yep.

I realise this is the preferred approach, but it simply
does not work. The bios reports the drive to be about 35G

That may be because you have stuffed up the MBR
by trying that route. Go right back to basics using
clearhdd and try again with the F2 flash and AUTO.

I didn't fiddle with the geom values to start with, but it may
be that installing the hdd onto a motherboard that couldn't
take it (when it had the old bios), set the geom incorrectly

Yes. In that case try clearhdd with the F3 bios.

and now the new bios can't correct that without a low-level wipe?

Thats basically what clearhdd does. It just writes zeros thru
the first few hundred tracks and that forces a replacement
of the MBR when that sector is seen to just have zeros in it.

I will try this out as there's not much to loose!
Yep.

I'll let you know what happens.

Please do.

 

[Folkert Rienstra]

Rod

Thanks for posting.

I flashed the beta version and when it didn't report the full drive
size I tried to flash the previous version, F2, but it wouldn't start.
Is it possible to go back to an earlier bios flash?


I realise this is the preferred approach, but it simply
does not work. The bios reports the drive to be about 35G


I didn't fiddle with the geom values to start with, but it may be that
installing the hdd onto a motherboard that couldn't take it (when it
had the old bios), set the geom incorrectly and now the new bios can't
correct that without a low-level wipe?

Check it out with IBM's FeatureTool, http://www.hgst.com/hdd/support/download.htm