WD800AARS showing as the wrong size

5abr3

5abr3

5abr3

Associate
Joined
12 Mar 2009
Posts
820
My brother has bought a Western Digital Green 800GB (WD800AARS-00Y5B1) SATA-2 HDD. Put it into his computer with the OS installation disc for a clean install and it reported to be 131GB, tried it in my Windows 7 machine and it shows as 127GB. Clearly this is just a bit short of what it's supposed to be and cannot be attributed to the binary to decimal conversion.

Took the disc back out and the label clearly says 800GB so does anyone have any idea if this is anything but a mis-labeled disc? Any ideas appreciated!
 
Last edited:
He's running XP Home and had a WD Caviar 80GB SATA-2 (which was removed first), my machine as you know runs 7 Pro and has a 1TB HDD in there so I doubt it's a motherboard or OS limit! Currently reading the disc as RAW as there is no point formatting the disc when its 5 times smaller than it should be.
 
Try this:
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=5324&p_created=&p_cats=185&p_cv=1.185&p_pv=2.294&p_prods=227%2C294
Its an "advanced format drive" so is 'special'. The jumper setting for xp using advanced format drives is in there somewhere if you scroll down.

Also this may apply:

http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=936&p_created=1049500809&p_sid=c8R74Y5k&p_accessibility=0&p_redirect=&p_srch=1&p_lva=1158&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9zb3J0X2J5PSZwX2dyaWRzb3J0PSZwX3Jvd19jbnQ9OCw4JnBfcHJvZHM9MjI3LDI5NCZwX2NhdHM9MTIzJnBfcHY9Mi4yOTQmcF9jdj0xLjEyMyZwX3NlYXJjaF90eXBlPWFuc3dlcnMuc2VhcmNoX2ZubCZwX3BhZ2U9MSZwX3NlYXJjaF90ZXh0PTEzN0dC&p_li=&p_topview=1

although this does not explain why it doesnt show up correctly in your pc

on the WD website search for "137GB" in the support/faq section, some articles may be of interest!
 
Last edited:
The machine was built in 2006 so the BIOS limit isn't applicable for his (or mine as you would expect).

Tried adding the 'special' jumper setting to no avail in his machine - I guess the next thing to try is the special mode in mine...
 
Ok shows up as ~800GB in mine so will format it in mine and transfer for the install, odd as when I used to use XP it quite happily formatted that 320GB HDD of mine! Though that wasn't a "special" disc :rolleyes:
 
The 800Gb drive isn't an Advanced Format drive. It's a simple case of the copy of XP Home being pre SP1 and hence not supporting 48bit LBA. As a result the drive only shows as being 132Gb, the remaining space is left unallocated.

It either needs formatted, as you're planning on doing, on the Win 7 machine or you need to slipstream, preferably, SP3 onto the XP disk.
 
rpstewart said:
The 800Gb drive isn't an Advanced Format drive. It's a simple case of the copy of XP Home being pre SP1 and hence not supporting 48bit LBA. As a result the drive only shows as being 132Gb, the remaining space is left unallocated.

It either needs formatted, as you're planning on doing, on the Win 7 machine or you need to slipstream, preferably, SP3 onto the XP disk.
Click to expand...

No advanced pin jumper showed 127GB in Windows 7, with the jumper it now shows as 745.12GB so that counts as proof enough for me, though tbh so long as it works I don't really care!
 
You were right though wrt 48bit addressing, saw that myself on WDs support FAQ. Wierd how it didnt work properly at first on win 7 :S
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom