Weird HDD problem

[71chevellejohn]

I have a "blank" 500GB WD drive that I cannot access the full capacity of.

Back story - about a year ago I bought a WD 500GB drive to replace the 120GB in my old Dell M1710. Somewhere in the process of cloning the original drive, something went wrong. After the cloning said it was done, I installed the drive and it only showed to have a capacity of ~114GB... not the full 500GB. Whenever I tried to format the drive or recover the full capacity it would only go back to the ~114GB.

I ended up re-installing the 120GB and using the Dell until the GFX card died - I then bought an HP and put the 500GB drive on the shelf.

For Christmas I was given a hard drive dock, so I figured I would mess with it again. I received another surprise when I plugged it in.

Now, the drive shows up as 13 drives!!! Each with a unique capacity ranging fro 6.23GB to 14.7GB... not enough to add up to the 500GB I purchased.

How do I blast the partitions and bring this thing back to the original 500GB??

Thanks in advance!

[Tx Redneck]

Dl this and format the drive then create a 500 gig partition.

http://majorgeeks.com/downloadget.php?id=5967&file=15&evp=3cf88ae765cc6791f1d574a1ce0ed267

[Nash B.]

It's probably covered under warranty at Best Buy!

[71chevellejohn]

It's probably covered under warranty at Best Buy!

Let me go drop it on the ground...

[Nash B.]

Worth a shot! LOL

[90GT50]

Let me go drop it on the ground...

Naw man, it's cool, the salesman told me I could drop it and get a brand new one.

[Tx Redneck]

Naw man, it's cool, the salesman told me I could drop it and get a brand new one.

Just like the "sales man @Worst Buy" told me I could do anything short of putting a jack hammer through an old puter and the "warranty" would cover it, but DON'T put an aftermarket GPU in it, that'll OC the processor and your "warranty" will be denied.

/nevermind

[Nash B.]

He made a good point.

[71chevellejohn]

Big Thanks to Tx Redneck! He found the cause and the solution of the problem with the HDD.

Dell, in all their inifinite wisdom, installed a HPA partition that creates this situation when you clone the original drive - it limits you to the original drive volume. The resolution is to run HDAT2, so the drive will return to it's native volume.

I ran into a problem with the HDAT2 iso file hanging up while scanning last night/this morning, so I shut it down and opted to sleep for a couple hours before work. Today I've done some more reading while at the office, and it looks like I may have tried the wrong iso. They have multiple versions available, just reading the broken english of the developer's site is a pain, especially at 2-3am.

I should have it fixed shortly after I get off work.