Failed 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint

crazedpanda · 10-19-2009, 01:23 PM

I have a 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint drive as my media drive in my desktop. I was doing a install of windows 7 on my computer over the weekend (onto the primary 300 GB Seagate drive), but somewhere during the install my Samsung drive stopped being recognized. This is important as I made my backups of important documents to this Samsung drive. I know it was dumb of me to have it be a connected drive that I have my data backed up onto, but in the future I will definitely invest in having an external backup method.

I have tried TestDisk, Paragon Partition Manager and both of them state that the drive is being recognized as 31.8 MB (in TeskDisk the CHD is 32 32 63), but after looking around on the internet I found that it should be 121601 255 63 for the CHD. Even with that being changed in TestDisk I could not see anything more than just one folder when I go to "List", but from other data recovery programs such as Zero Assumption Recovery I could see more of the partition table since it lists other folders (not all, but a lot more than just one). I looked through the guide posted on this forum about using TestDisk, but I was worried that since I couldn't see anything even under "List", writing that partition table wouldn't work.

I have a friend who suggested that I boot from a Linux live CD to see if I can see the data, but what other options do I have?

crazedpanda · 10-19-2009, 03:04 PM

Update:

After using Ubuntu Live CD, I was able to see the drive. It must be something with Windows handling the drive's partition table or boot sector. Would my best option be to just get an external drive and copy over the files or does this mean that I can actually repair it?

Thanks.

crazedpanda · 10-19-2009, 05:13 PM

Also, when I typed CHD in the first part I actually mean CHS.

**raptor_pa** · 10-19-2009, 07:33 PM

Better to copy the data and then zero wipe and reformat. If the P-table is bodged up, hard to tell what else may be - get the data first- fix drive second :) Then try this read the blog and docs... http://blog.atola.com/restoring-fact...rive-capacity/ my guess would be an HPA or DCO got set up during the win7 install.

crazedpanda · 10-20-2009, 12:29 AM

In case anyone else has this same problem, I managed to get it fixed without ANY data loss (at least none that I can tell so far).

The hard drive is the Samsung Spinpoint 103UJ one which seems to have had a lot of problems with getting turned into 32 MB size. My motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM S2H and I could not get the HDD Capacity Restore tool from Atola to work with it. After browsing the user responses to that post, I found a potential solution:

Update the BIOS

This seemed dangerous so it was only after nothing else worked that I tried it. It worked perfectly. There was actually a BIOS update released by Gigabyte for that motherboard about a year or two ago that addressed this specific issue (1TB drive sizes not being correct).

Thanks for your help raptor!

10-19-2009, 01:23 PM	#1 (permalink)
crazedpanda Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 4 OS: windows 7	Failed 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint I have a 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint drive as my media drive in my desktop. I was doing a install of windows 7 on my computer over the weekend (onto the primary 300 GB Seagate drive), but somewhere during the install my Samsung drive stopped being recognized. This is important as I made my backups of important documents to this Samsung drive. I know it was dumb of me to have it be a connected drive that I have my data backed up onto, but in the future I will definitely invest in having an external backup method. I have tried TestDisk, Paragon Partition Manager and both of them state that the drive is being recognized as 31.8 MB (in TeskDisk the CHD is 32 32 63), but after looking around on the internet I found that it should be 121601 255 63 for the CHD. Even with that being changed in TestDisk I could not see anything more than just one folder when I go to "List", but from other data recovery programs such as Zero Assumption Recovery I could see more of the partition table since it lists other folders (not all, but a lot more than just one). I looked through the guide posted on this forum about using TestDisk, but I was worried that since I couldn't see anything even under "List", writing that partition table wouldn't work. I have a friend who suggested that I boot from a Linux live CD to see if I can see the data, but what other options do I have?

10-19-2009, 03:04 PM	#2 (permalink)
crazedpanda Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 4 OS: windows 7	Re: Failed 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint Update: After using Ubuntu Live CD, I was able to see the drive. It must be something with Windows handling the drive's partition table or boot sector. Would my best option be to just get an external drive and copy over the files or does this mean that I can actually repair it? Thanks.

10-19-2009, 05:13 PM	#3 (permalink)
crazedpanda Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 4 OS: windows 7	Re: Failed 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint Also, when I typed CHD in the first part I actually mean CHS.

10-19-2009, 07:33 PM	#4 (permalink)
raptor_pa Mod Hardware Team Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Central PA Posts: 7,946 OS: XP	Re: Failed 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint Better to copy the data and then zero wipe and reformat. If the P-table is bodged up, hard to tell what else may be - get the data first- fix drive second :) Then try this read the blog and docs... http://blog.atola.com/restoring-fact...rive-capacity/ my guess would be an HPA or DCO got set up during the win7 install. __________________

10-20-2009, 12:29 AM	#5 (permalink)
crazedpanda Registered User Join Date: Oct 2009 Posts: 4 OS: windows 7	Re: Failed 1 TB Samsung Spinpoint In case anyone else has this same problem, I managed to get it fixed without ANY data loss (at least none that I can tell so far). The hard drive is the Samsung Spinpoint 103UJ one which seems to have had a lot of problems with getting turned into 32 MB size. My motherboard is the Gigabyte GA-MA69GM S2H and I could not get the HDD Capacity Restore tool from Atola to work with it. After browsing the user responses to that post, I found a potential solution: Update the BIOS This seemed dangerous so it was only after nothing else worked that I tried it. It worked perfectly. There was actually a BIOS update released by Gigabyte for that motherboard about a year or two ago that addressed this specific issue (1TB drive sizes not being correct). Thanks for your help raptor!