HDD Help Needed (U'll Laugh or Cry!)

[Methanoid]

OK

I have a 1.5Tb Samsung F2 drive. Nice drive. I have 3!

Formatted as NTFS single primary partition. Installed in an IcyBox external (USB/SATA).

Plugged into my Revo Ion box running Linux XBMC, then plugged into my W7 PC.

Somewhere along line the drive got convinced it was now a single 128gb drive and zapped my data (yes 90% full of precious files inc family photos!)

Ran GetDataBack for NTFS and transferred all data to another drive which was formatted EXT2 (Linux) but couldnt get my Linux box to read that drive in the IcyBox.

Downloaded Samsung HDD tool and reset the "problem" drive to 1.5Tb. Formatted as NTFS single again all looked fine and copied all the files off the EXT2 drive to this one.

In meantime I reformatted my Linux machine as W7 and thought I cannot have problems with all machines being 100% native NTFS machines!

All files worked fine in a 3rd PC. Then unplugged drive and popped back into IcyBox and connected to Revo Ion machine (now W7).

Error: Drive needs formatting. And shows as 128gb!?!?!

WTF

Is the problem IcyBox USB-SATA implementation?
Is the problem the one Samsung 1.5Tb drive?
Is the problem the Revo Ion box?

No idea where the problem is but I can tell you doing data recovery extracting 1.3Tb of Data isnt fun.. especially when your gonads depend on it. She Who Must Be Obeyed would NOT look kindly on me losing last 8 years of family photos!

So laugh or cry.. any ideas where to start as I do NOT want a 3rd file recovery, as it takes around 24 hours to recover the files (of solid time)

 

[rpstewart]

any ideas where to start

Get a backup of your photos before you do anything!

This is a bit of a tricky one, there's nothing obviously wrong with what you're trying to do. Personally I'd get all the data off the drive in question and stash it elsewhere then try some controlled testing taking it a step at a time to a) try and recreate the problem and then b) attempt to understand why it's happening. Unfortunately the main problem with that is it's going to be difficult to eliminate variables without spending a whack of cash on extra kit.

You can work round the lack of kit though. Try and see if the problem is repeatable, and if it's then consistently repeatable. Doing that should point you in the right direction if it does come down to having to take a punt on a new part.

 

[Methanoid]

Well the Revo, the HDD and the IcyBox are all under warranty so the bugger that causes this is getting replaced (unless it is me!!)

 

[ThomasTheTankEngine]

I don't think there's anythign wrong with the drive. It sounds like you're plugging it into something that doesn't support 48-bit Logical Block Addressing.

If it doesn't support 48bit LBA, then as soon as the drive is plugged into the system, it'll get repartitioned to 128gb (the max non 48-bit LBA systems support) and you're data will get screwed up.

IIRC you need to make sure both the BIOS and OS support 48-bit LBA. Early versions of Windows XP didn't have support, only after SP1 was it enabled. (it was a long time ago I last dealt with a problem like this!)

 

[Methanoid]

I don't think there's anythign wrong with the drive. It sounds like you're plugging it into something that doesn't support 48-bit Logical Block Addressing.

If it doesn't support 48bit LBA, then as soon as the drive is plugged into the system, it'll get repartitioned to 128gb (the max non 48-bit LBA systems support) and you're data will get screwed up.

IIRC you need to make sure both the BIOS and OS support 48-bit LBA. Early versions of Windows XP didn't have support, only after SP1 was it enabled. (it was a long time ago I last dealt with a problem like this!)

Thats what I thought.. but the Revo is a 2009 machine FFS!!! Maybe something got screwed in its BIOS and it has now assumed it only allows 128gb drives. Funny thing is the main boot drive on that machine is 160gb and works fine.

I'm thinking its more likely the drive firmware needs a reflashing.. but thats tomorrow.. only 1.18tb of data to recover now. GetDataBack has started its magic and reports 0% complete.. if I am REALLY lucky it will be done when I leave the house at 6am tomorrow!