Question:

Can someone explain how Large differs from LBA and from CHS? Depending on what to choose these parameters? Or give a link where you can read about it.

Answer:

LBA, Large, CHS - methods for translating sector numbers in a hard drive.
Previously, when hard drives were small, the sector was accessed as follows:
The application (in particular, the operating system) calls function 2 (sector read) (or 3 - write) of the BIOS interrupt int 13h and sends it three coordinates of the required sector - cylinder (track), head, sector number on the track. These three parameters could take the values ​​0-1023, 0-255, 1-63, respectively, track, head, sector (if we multiply these numbers, we get 8 GB, the capacity is quite large even by today's standards, but it's hard to imagine a disk with such parameters) . These ranges were laid down by the BIOS developers of the very first IBM PC back in 1981 (I think). Then these restrictions did not cause any particular inconvenience, since the most capacious drive of 30 megabytes had 27 sectors per track, 4 or 6 heads with 100-150 cylinders. Those who were not enough of these megabytes put the second disk. Transmitted coordinates one to one, without any transformations and recalculations, were driven into the registers of the disk controller.
Soon IDE drives appeared, which were more capacious and less bulky. The hardware registers of their controllers made it possible to address 256 sectors, 16 heads and 65536 tracks. However, the actual disk sizes were still far from these figures, and therefore the same BIOS functions were used with the same limitations. The BIOS operation algorithm was the same as before - the specified coordinates were also sent to the controller, etc.
This sector addressing method is now called direct sector addressing or CHS (Cylinder-Head-Sector). It is used when you need to connect an old disk to a modern machine, as well as when you need to run some stupid programs. If you try to apply this method to a screw with a capacity above 514 MB, the system will see only the first 514 MB - see LBA for reasons.
Over time, it became clear that it was physically impossible to place 256 heads in the disk case, while it was much easier and easier to increase the number of cylinders. Drives with a maximum capacity of 514 raw megabytes could not meet the ever-increasing demand for new software and multimedia systems. Even installing 2 or 4 disks did not solve the problem, it only pushed it back for a while.
Then a number of methods were developed to bypass the limitation of the outdated BIOS. Here are software solutions, like ADM, which was popular at the time, and rather exotic hardware solutions, when one physical disk was presented to the system as 2 or even 3 disks. But they all had their drawbacks and limitations. So, ADM immediately "died" at the slightest damage to the MBR, and the "forking" disk did not allow connecting a slave drive to itself. The only method that has taken root is Large. It is applicable for disks that have between 1024 and 2048 cylinders and do not support LBA (see below), but such disks are almost non-existent now. This method "deceives" the BIOS parameter transfer system, increasing the number of heads by 2 times and reducing the number of cylinders by the same amount, thus driving it into the framework of 2/3 functions and not changing the disk capacity.
In 1994, the LBA - Large (or Logic) Block Addressing standard appeared, which is still used today.
LBA uses the so-called. translation of sectors, in which its real parameters differ from those that the system sees. The broadcast made it possible to solve a number of other, purely technical, internal tasks. For example, the problem of bad sectors. Previously, such places were blocked at the FAT level, and no one could forbid a program working at the sector level from writing to corrupted places. The broadcasting controller automatically removes such sectors from circulation, substituting others in their place. Neither BIOS nor OS ever knows about it. Another feature - have you ever wondered - how do the 16 heads that it reports about fit in your 2 cm thick disk case. The answer is simple - they are simply not there. In modern disks, most often there is one plate (respectively 2 heads), less often 2, even less often - 3. But on this plate there is a huge number of concentric tracks (cylinders). And what the controller gives out is the so-called virtual disk with unrealistic parameters.
LBA addresses the sector not with 3 coordinates, but with one - a logical number - just like DOS does in its int25/26h interrupts. This number has a length of 3 * 8 + 4 = 28 bits - respectively, max 2 ^ 28 sectors - recalculate yourself in megabytes. The screw gives the maximum parameters in the old CHS scheme, i.e. for example, a disk has 16 heads, 63 sectors and 30,000 cylinders, and now only the number of cylinders changes, the number of heads and sectors is almost always the same. To get around this very BIOS limitation, an algorithm is used, the same as in Large, i.e. dividing cylinders by 2, and heads * 2, only here it works more than once, as in Large, but until the number of heads reaches 256, or the number of cylinders does not become less than 1023. The number of sectors does not change. So it turns out something like 63 sectors, 256 heads and 790 cylinders - full compliance with BIOS restrictions. When accessing a sector, its 3 coordinates are converted into LBA number, and it is transmitted to the controller.
If you "tell" the BIOS to work with a large screw in Normal (CHS) mode, then it uses the first 1024 cylinders - we will get the same 514 unformatted megabytes that were mentioned above.
Working with drives over 8 GB is similar, since LBA addresses much more than 8 GB, only instead of the good old functions 2 and 3, others are used that have less stringent restrictions on track, head and sector numbers.
Pavel

In the distant 80s of the last millennium;), in the days of the already little-known MFM and RLL, to access a hard drive, one had to know (and indicate) its "geometry". By "geometry" is meant the "physical" number of cylinders (tracks) (" C" - from Cylinders), heads (" H" - from Heads), and sectors per track (" S"- from Sectors). That is, any block of information on the hard drive was characterized by three variables: C, H and S (hence - CHS addressing). And it should be noted that these values ​​have always been "real".
All modern hard drives have a fundamentally different density of information, and, for example, even such a seemingly "logical" value as S - the number of sectors per track, does not even closely correspond to the value indicated on the hard drive label (and when detected in the BIOS). In reality, the number of sectors per track is a variable and decreases as you approach the last (extreme) inner track. Therefore, in order to overcome this ambiguity, the hard drive controller "tells" the BIOS not real values, but parameters "digestible" for it, translating the "coordinates" already received from it into "real" ones.
For example, a hard drive can contain two platters and, accordingly, four heads, and the controller will "tell" the BIOS about 16 available heads. Moreover, the BIOS, for the "digestibility" of the operating system, can furiously "assert" that the hard drive does not have 16, but as many as 255 heads. In turn, the OS will add to the problems of all these "recalculations" also restrictions on the size of the partition due to the use of a specific file system (for example, FAT16). It is precisely because of this versatility of the problem that many people argue so often, confusing and mixing problems of different origins. Let's try to clarify all aspects of the problem.

To deal with the "limitations", you need to clearly understand the entire structure of working with a disk: from the application to the read / write heads themselves. Schematically, the recording process can be represented as follows:

Consider the "formats" of each of the stages.

1. Winchester "physically" consists of one or more plates coated with a magnetic layer. On both sides of the plate (sometimes only on one side) there are heads for reading / writing information. The information is written on "tracks" which, in the case of multiple heads, form a cylinder. The track is divided into sectors, each of which represents the minimum block of information that can be written to the disc. The standard sector size is 512 bytes.
As already mentioned, the very first hard drives had a constant number of sectors per track on the entire disk. However, this did not allow efficient use of the entire surface of the disk - each subsequent outer track is longer than the inner one, respectively, more information can fit on it. Therefore, modern hard drives are divided into "zones", i.e. a collection of adjacent tracks with the same number of sectors per track. That is why the graph of linear reading of the hard drive (serviceable) looks like descending steps.

2. The hard drive controller controls the operation of the read / write heads. It translates the "interface" commands into electrical signals on the heads. Interfaces are different: "prehistoric" MFM and RLL, modern IDE (ATA) and SCSI, "future" SerialATA. Naturally, we are interested in IDE hard drives, and therefore we will consider the ATA interface.
As already, again, it was said - "historically" there was a use of CHS-addressing. In this case, in the case of ATA:

• two bytes are allocated for "C" (16 bits)
• for "S" - one byte minus 1 sector (8 bits - 1)
• for "H" - half a byte (4 bits)

Total, maximum hard drive for CHS addressing:

2^16x(2^8-1)x2^4 = 65536x255x16 = 267 386 880 sectors. In a sector of 512 bytes, then:

HDDmax(CHS) = 65536x255x16*512 = 136902082560 byte = 136.9Gb (127.5GB)*

"kB" = 2^10 = 1024 bytes
"MB" = 1024 kB = 1024*1024 byte = 1 048 576 byte
"GB" = 1024 MB = 1024*1024*1024 byte = 1 073 741 824 byte
"Mb" = 1,000,000 bytes, 1MB = 1.05Mb
"Gb" = 1,000,000,000 bytes, 1GB = 1.07Gb

All modern hard drives use LBA addressing. In this case, each sector number is a 28-bit number and the maximum disk for LBA will be:

HDDmax(LBA) = 2^28*512 = 137 438 953 472 byte = 137.4Gb (128GB)

3. The BIOS, according to the "hierarchy" described above, is located between the OS and the hard drive controller. Its function is to translate the disk request commands from the OS into the hard drive controller commands.
Most software uses CHS addressing. Therefore, with the advent of "LBA-hard drives", in order not to rewrite the existing software, they acted as follows. If the BIOS detects an LBA hard drive, it converts its parameters to the CHS version and the OS "thinks" that it is working with a CHS hard drive. Those. The 28-bit LBA value is "decomposed" as follows - "cylindrical" 16 bits + "sector" 8 bits + "head" 4 bits (total 16+8+4=28). Or specifically:

• bits 0-7 - sector (+1pcs, because CHS addressing starts from the 1st, not the 0th sector)
• bits 8-15 - cylinder low byte
• bits 16-23 - cylinder high byte
• bits 24-27 - head

When a request is received to work with a disk, the BIOS translates this value for the controller back into LBA:

LBA = [(cylinder * number of heads + head number) * number of sectors per track] + (sector number - 1)

4. In the distant, still DOS times, they did not suspect that once the capacity of hard drives would be measured in tens and even hundreds of gigabytes. After all, the richest man in the world (and the most cursed by the computer fraternity in one bottle;) also somehow talked about "infinity" of 640kB of RAM. As a result, for addressing CHS in DOS ( Int 13h) the following "three-byte" system was chosen:

1. one byte - for the least significant bits of the cylinder value (bits 0-7)
2. one byte - for the two most significant bits of the cylinder value (8-9 bits) and six bits of the sector value
3. one byte - for the value of the heads

In total, it turned out, "C" = 0-1023, "H" = 0-255, "S" = 1-63, respectively, the maximum hard drive that DOS is able to work with will be:

HDDmax(DOS) = 1024x256x63*512 = 8 455 716 864 = 8.46Gb (7.88GB)

Or for LBA addressing, this is a 24-bit (3 bytes) number:

HDDmax(DOS-LBA) = 2^24*512 = 8,589,934,592 = 8.59Gb (8GB)

5. Applications use a specific file system, which also has its limitations. For example, in the case of FAT16, the size of the partition depends on the size of the cluster, and the maximum can be 2^16 clusters. A cluster is a set of sectors and its standard maximum value is 64 sectors ("non-standard" 128 and more allow only linux-like utilities to be made), i.e. 32kB. Those. maximum partition for FAT16:

FAT16max = 2^16*32kB = 2 147 483 648 = 2.15Gb (2GB)

Now, knowing all these points, let's try to restore the chronology of the occurrence of problems with "large" disks.

134Mb, year 1990.

The oldest and, probably, little-known problem concerns the times of 100Mb (not Gb!) hard drives and more. FAT12 was used then, for which the maximum partition was:

FAT12max = 2^12*32kB = 134 217 728 = 134Mb (128MB)

Solution method simple - switching to FAT16 (that's what it was created for).

528Mb, year 1993.

The very first, most famous and most serious problem affecting CHS.
The fact is that all the first biowriters did not expect that someday someone would try to shove such "giant" screws into their offspring. The problem was because Int13h and the IDE had the following restrictions on the CHS value:

Int13h: C/H/S = 1024/256/63
IDE: C/H/S = 65536/16/255

Accordingly, the maximum option that satisfies both cases was 1024/16/63, which means that the largest installed hard drive could be:

HDDmax(oldBIOS) = 1024x16x63*512 = 528 482 304 = 528Mb (504MB)

Decision The problem had three paths. The first- this is formatting a "too big" hard drive using the 528Mb utility built into the BIOS. This method was quite "common" at one time (due to the inexperience of users;).
Second- use of special software - disk managers (such as OnTrack, EZ-Drive, etc.), which replace BIOS routines for working with disks with their own. As a rule, such programs modified the MBR of the disk to work. However, this did not allow working correctly with the disk when booting from another hard drive (or even a floppy disk), and there were also big problems with installing several operating systems on such a disk.
Well the third- Bios update. However, flash memory for bios microcircuits was not widespread then, and the Internet was not developed, respectively, and no one made or posted firmware. Therefore, due to the practical inefficiency of all these methods, the board should (had) simply been replaced with a "supporting LBA".

2.11Gb, year 1996.

Many bioscribers did not take into account previous experience and added only 2 bits per cylinder to the BIOS. In total it turned out:

HDDmax(1996) = 2^12x16x63*512 = 2 113 929 216 = 2.11Gb (1.97GB)

Moreover, some versions determined only a "part" of the hard drive (for example, 2.5Gb was defined as 425Mb), and some simply hung when the hard drive was autodetected due to incorrect head recalculation.

Solution- bios update (or use disk managers).

2.15Gb, year 1996.

The newly appeared Windows95 ("A", not OSR) used DOS's FAT16 and therefore inherited all its problems - the above described limitation of 2.15Gb per partition.

Solution- Installing Windows95B (OSR2) which allowed FAT32 to be used. FAT32 has a maximum partition:

FAT32max = 2^32*32kB = 17042430230528 = 17042Gb (15872GB)

3.28Gb, ​​year 1996-1997.

In older versions of Phoenix BIOS (v. 4.03 and 4.04) there was a bug with the detection of hard drives larger than 3.277Mb.

Solution- update to version 4.05 and later.

4.23Gb, year 1997.

Not a well-known limitation, it follows from the methods of solving "problems 528Mb". So, in order to overcome the 528Mb barrier, bios could use one of two methods: "LBA assist translation" and "Bit shift translation ("Large" Mode)".
Method "LBA Broadcasts" if there is an LBA hard drive in the system for compatibility with old software ( Int 13h) calculated the CHS value using the following algorithm:

Total number of sectors on the disk, S_lba	"Recalculated" number of cylinders, C			Maximum capacity
1 - 1 032 192
1 032 192 - 2 064 384
2 064 384 - 4 128 768
4 128 768 - 8 257 536	S_lba / (63*128)
8 257 536 - 16 450 560	S_lba / (63*255)

However, before the advent of LBA hard drives, there were many hard drives that did not support LBA with a capacity of more than 528Mb. To work with such hard drives, the following cylinder recalculation was used:

Number of cylinders on the disk, s	Number of heads, h	Converted number of cylinders, C	Converted number of heads, H	Max capacity
1 - 1 024
1 024 - 2 048
2 048 - 4 096
4 096 - 8 192
8 192 - 16 384
16 384 - 32 768
32 768 - 65 536

As a result, BIOSes using this translation for hard drives 4.23Gb (and more) and having 16 heads "translated" their number to 256. However, the old software (DOS, Windows95) "understood" only the values ​​0-255 and 256 heads was perceived as 0.

Solution- Bios update.

7.93Gb, year 1997-1998.

In the same "some" BIOSes (as in the previous case), only more advanced ones, the problem described above was managed by equating the number of heads to 15. The result was not 256, but 240 tracks and the maximum disk:

HDDmax(Large-15) = 1024x240x63*512 = 7927234560 = 7.93Gb (7.38GB)

Solution- Bios update.

8.46Gb, year 1998.

The above limitation Int 13h. True, there were no configurations with 256 heads, so the real limitation is:

HDDmax(Int13h/DOS) = 1024x255x63*512 = 8 422 686 720 = 8.42Gb (7.84GB)

Decision- Bios update.

33.8Gb, year 1999, summer.

The most actual problem. After fixing bios "int 13h problems", which limits disks to 8.4Gb, the addressing scheme has become similar to the ATA interface:

• C - two bytes (16 bits), maximum - 2^16 = 65536
• H - one byte (4 bits), maximum - 2^4 = 16
• S - one byte (8 bits), maximum - 2^8 = 255
• or in LBA mode - 16+4+8=28 bits

Those. theoretically it was possible to work with the largest disks 137.4Gb. Once again, however, the biowriters were wrong. They did not take into account that when recalculating cylinders according to the old scheme, they simply "do not have enough" even 16bit for cylinders. For example, a 41.2Gb disk with a configuration of 19710/16/255 received from the hard drive an LBA value of the number of sectors of 80,416,800 pcs. and when recalculated according to the "standard" algorithm with 16 heads and 63 sectors, it turned out:

80416800 / (16*63) = 79778 cylinder.
79778 > 65536 (2^16) and therefore did not fit in 16 bits.

Accordingly, the 16-bit division algorithm used simply hung due to an overflow error. To solve the problem, it was necessary to replace all 16-bit division instructions with 32-bit ones and add a condition: if the LBA value of the number of disk sectors exceeds:

HDDmax(32GB) = 65536x16x63 = 66,060,288 sectors = 33.8Gb (31.5GB) ,

then the number of sectors is equal to 255. This is what was done in the Award BIOS versions after June 1999.

Let's stop at decision this problem in more detail, because she is still popular a large number owners of "old" Socket7 boards (and the first Pentium2) who want to increase the size of their disk without a "global" upgrade of the entire computer. It’s just that the prices for 40-60Gb hard drives have now fallen so much that it’s completely unprofitable to buy smaller drives (and often not even because of a penny difference compared to 10-20Gb hard drives, but simply because of the lack of models with a smaller capacity).

So, the main and simplest solution to the problem- update bios. However, for the overwhelming majority of Socket7 boards (all except the "latest" ones - based on VIA MVP3/MVP4, ALI V, SiS 530/540), manufacturers have not released new BIOS versions supporting "large" hard drives. Therefore, if you are a happy owner of some i430VX/TX or VIA VPX, don't bother searching the Internet for a "new" BIOS for your undecided freshly bought hard drive. After all, even the most recognized "biowriter" Asus has not released new versions for its line of boards based on the i430TX chipset. As you saw, very little was needed to fix it, so the reason for the "forgetfulness" of all manufacturers without exception to upload new versions for their old boards is marketing, they say, buy our new boards, everything is fine there.

What can you advise if you have already bought such a "big" disk.

1. Some hard drives have jumpers to configure the hard drive to 33.8Gb. Get a perfectly functional system, but, unfortunately, with a smaller volume.
2. Windows (98 and above) uses its own routines to determine the hard drive, in which there are no problems for working with hard drives larger than 33.8Gb. Therefore, if you want to use a "large" disk simply as a "second" one (i.e., you will boot not from it, but from another, smaller than 33.8Gb), then you can simply turn off the auto-detection of the "large" hard drive in the BIOS (i.e. .e. set Disabled). Then the computer will not hang in the BIOS, and Windows itself will quite correctly determine the "invisible BIOS" disk during boot, and it will be possible to correctly use its entire volume. However, firstly, you will not be able to use a "large" disk from under DOS (its partitions will simply be absent there), and secondly, it is highly likely that the speed of working with such a "invisible in BIOS" disk will be significantly lower from -for "uninitialization" of its UDMA protocol (i.e. it can work with the PIO4-10Mb/s protocol and even lower).
3. In some rare BIOSes, the "32GB problem" can be bypassed by setting the parameters of the "large" disk manually (as for old hard drives).
4. Well, and, finally, the old, familiar (and so uncomfortable) - disc managers.

On my own behalf, however, I can add that on my website www.site you can find a "collection" of bios for many old boards with support for "large" hard drives, and if your bios is not in the collection, you can always use a special program BIOS Patcher, which will add correct support for hard drives up to 120Gb to your BIOS.

65.5Gb, year 2000, winter.

Not all biowriters approached the "32Gb problem" conscientiously, and as a result, only one error related to overflow at 16-bit division was corrected.

The fact is that a 16-bit register was used to display the volume of the hard drive, the volume was displayed in megabytes, in total the maximum disk could be:

HDDmax(64GB) = 2^16 - 1 = 65535Mb = 65.5Gb (64GB) ,

In this case, the computer hung immediately after the hard drive was detected, and there was no way to get around this (except by turning it off in BIOS Setup). Later, to fix this problem, the following condition was made: up to 64GB - display the capacity in megabytes, above - in gigabytes.

Decision- Bios update.

137.4Gb, year 2002.

Modern drives have reached the limit of the ATA standard. To overcome it, it will already be necessary to change the "interface" itself. Which, for example, was suggested by the same Maxtor in its specification for UDMA133.

Solution- BIOS update, but for the vast majority, all the same, this is not a problem at all. Bye. ;)

Question: Confused about gigabytes

Hello.

Confused in gigabytes gigabits.

There is a server with an LSI SAS 9211-8i card. The ds3512 is connected to it.

At what maximum speed can they communicate with each other?
In gigabytes and gigabits

Thank you

Answer:
the table on the same page 2) all speeds are written there depending on the duplex and the number of lines)

those shelf will not rest against the performance of the interface? Gigabyte will freely pump?)

Question: I transferred the hard drive from gpt to mbr with a third-party program, after the transfer the computer stopped reading it

Guys need help. In general, I transferred the hard disk from gpt to mbr through a program, without losing data, in order to give a little memory to the main disk. after the translation, the computer stopped reading it and requires formatting it for work. But I can’t do this, because there is important data left. Tried to bring back the same thing. Tell me how to return everything, well, or at least a program so that I can read this data and transfer it to another place before formatting

Answer:

Message from dmitry911

In general, I transferred the hard drive from gpt to mbr through a program, without data loss, in order to give a little memory to the main disk.

Through what program? Talk about it when you start.

Message from dmitry911

Tell me how to return everything, well, or at least a program so that I can read this data and transfer it to another place before formatting

First, show what DMDE sees in the Partitions window
Perhaps there is a chance to restore the markup in place, depending on the degree of "buggy" of the super-program with which they mocked their data.
Of the recovery programs, I usually recommend Rsaver (Free) and R-Studio.

Question: Where did the gigabytes on the hard drive go?

1) A very common question on the forum is:
"I bought a hard drive for 1 terabyte, and the system shows that it has 931 gigabytes, where did the gigabytes go? Or maybe the hard drive is faulty? Or was I deceived?"
we answer: such a difference arises in the different interpretation of the prefixes "kilo" "mega" "giga" "tera" (and so on) by manufacturers of hard drives using

And the binary representation of information in a computer, which are powers of two:
2^10 kilos = 1024 bytes
2^20 mega = 1048576 bytes
2^30 giga = 1073741824 bytes
(although it would be more correct to call them "kibi" "mebi" "gibi" (do not laugh, these prefixes really did not take root))
so:
terabyte, in the concept of hard disk manufacturers: 1000000000000, we begin to divide:
1000000000000 / 1024 = 976562500 kilobytes
976562500 /1024 = 953674.3 megabytes
953674.3 / 1024 = 931.3 gigabytes.
that's the whole point.

2) Many IDE drives have a capacity "cut" mode up to 32 GB and this mode is turned on with a special jumper,
the purpose of which can be found on the HDD sticker. This mode (32GB Clip) is useful if the motherboard hangs when detecting a disk at the initial stage of startup.
Accordingly, if the jumper is removed, the disk will again begin to be determined by its native capacity.
this information is not relevant for SATA drives.
Having purchased an IDE hard drive "from hand", check if it is installed.
Or if suddenly the disk is "cut down" to this size - check if someone has played a joke on you.

3) another question, also quite old, but still:
When I connect a 250GB hard drive to my ASRock motherboard, Windows® 2000 or XP only detects 128GB or 137GB. How can I solve this problem?
answer:
import this key into the registry
and reboot, of course.

REGEDIT4 "EnableBigLBA"=dword:00000001

4) another reason why the apparent capacity of the hard drive may differ from the nameplate:
Host Protected Area: change the physical volume of the disk

Is it possible to turn a 120 GB hard drive into 20 GB? Of course yes - for example, create one 20 GB partition on it, and not use the rest. And so that it is also determined by 20 in the BIOS? But why? - you ask. For example, to protect information from viruses or from accidental damage / deletion. Or if the old BIOS freezes on the auto-detect of a screw exceeding 32 GB, and the manufacturer did not provide jumpers limiting the volume ... Or (God forbid), bad blocks appeared on the hard drive, at the very end, and they must be hidden from the operating system so that it does not even climb there when formatting. many...

Host Protected Area is a reduction in the number of available physical sectors on a hard disk, with a corresponding correction of the disk passport. Those. a disk cut by HPA will be determined to a smaller (compared to the manufacturer's) volume, which will make the cut part inaccessible to either the OS or the BIOS. Accordingly, other programs, such as formatting and checking, will not be able to access the hidden part. Circumcision of the disk always occurs from the end, i.e. with HPA, you cannot cut an arbitrary region in the middle, and you cannot move the beginning of the disk. As with AAM, HPA results are retained after power is turned off.

5) another problem that was notorious at the time - the so-called "CC fly", which greatly undermined the credibility of Seagate Barracuda hard drives

Suspicions began to appear back in December last year, when Seagate 7200.11 series drives began to increasingly arrive at service centers with the same symptoms - when you turn on the computer, the hard drive is not detected at all or it is detected, but with a volume of 0 GB. At the same time, both the electronics and the mechanics of the disk are perfectly serviceable. As it turned out, the problem lies in the so-called translator table, which is responsible for converting the real physical addressing of the disk into a logical one - due to an error in the disk firmware, this table can collapse, which will lead to the symptoms described above. At the same time, all user data on the disk remains safe and sound, but is no longer available for the computer.

(quote dated January 2009)
the problem affected the Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, ES.2 and DiamondMax 22 models.
At present, it rarely occurs.
If you know how to hold a soldering iron in your hands, then you can quite expel the CC fly with the help of a simple device.
I will not give here the whole mechanism of treatment, it is now simply searched for on the Internet.

The following models are at risk:
ST3500320AS, ST3500620AS, ST3500820AS, ST3640330AS, ST3640530AS, ST3750330AS, ST3750630AS, ST31000340AS with firmware AD14, SD15, SD16, SD17, SD18, SD19
STM3500320AS, STM3750330AS, STM31000340AS, STM31000333AS with MX15 and older firmware
ST31500341AS, ST31000333AS, ST3640323AS, ST3640623AS, ST3320613AS, ST3320813AS, ST3160813AS
STM31000334AS, STM3320614AS, STM3160813AS
ST3250310NS, ST3500320NS, ST3750330NS, ST31000340NS

Here you can check your drive for a firmware update.
or a program from Seagate:

There are, of course, other reasons for the loss or change in the capacity of hard drives and flash drives, but about them a little later.

Answer:

Message from Magirus

terabyte, in the concept of hard drive manufacturers: 1000000000000

Quite right...
in the Middle Ages, manufacturers would have been burned at the stake for such heresy

Question: dual-channel mode on 2 + 1 gigabyte brackets

The question is, I guess, noob. But, nevertheless, I have not seen the answer to it in plain text anywhere.

How exactly does the built-in (on the mother) video take part of the RAM for itself?

Let me explain. There is an old computer with 3 (2+1) gigabytes of RAM. I would like to speed it up a little for free. No hardware upgrade.

And the first thing that came to my mind was to increase the size of the part of memory allocated for the built-in video. The default is 256 megabytes. The BIOS allows you to set values, it seems, up to 2 gigabytes. But such an ancient video card as the Radeon HD3100 (780V chipset) does not need so much memory. Yes, and Windows will only have 1 gig, which is not enough. I decided to allocate 1 gig. And this is where the question comes in: if I select 1 gig from 2 gig sticks for video, will I be able to enable dual-channel memory mode? After all, in fact, both strips will become 1-gig. Or does everything happen the other way around: from a pair of strips already working in dual-channel mode, memory is allocated for the video chip?

Answer: komandor, thanks for the detailed answer.

Question: 3 gigabytes in the GTX1060 is that scary?

In general, as we know, the GTX1060 is available in two variations: 3 gigabytes and 6, respectively. So, in addition to memory, the chip was cut. Disabled some cluster, I really have no idea what it is, because. for me, "numbers and bukafki" is the main thing. I watched the video and it is clearly visible that it is the amount of memory that decides, because. in the same Tomb Raider, when unloading memory in closed locations, the FPS is almost comparable. And in simpler games (GTA, Witcher) in terms of memory), it is completely the same in 90% of cases. So, is there any reason to take 3 gigabytes for such games? Because I won’t play Lara anyway, I’ve never even met. It's sad (albeit hilarious) but in a year Volta will see the light of day and humiliate Pascal the way it happened to Maxwell. With more high performance, and lower price. An example of this is again the GTX1060, which almost dropped the GTX980. Well, it's probably worth mentioning the most important thing. The difference will be 3-4 thousand. I ask for reflection and understanding of this situation, because. each new generation gives an increase in geometric progression, and the card will have to be sold, and 3 gigabytes will be easier to shake off, IMHO.

Answer: Here's an even better option for you, 1050ti with 4 gigs of memory. even cheaper

Question: Of the 4 gigabytes (3 bars: 2,1,1) of DDR2 RAM, only 2.74Gb is available

(windows7*64bit). Maybe due to the fact that one AB?
1 GB DDR2 6400 800
Hynix HYMP112U64CP8-S6AB
(1R *8PS2-6400U-666-12)
1 GB DDR2 6400 800
Hynix HYMP112U64CP8-S6 AB-C
(1R *8PS2-6400U-666-12)
2 GB DDR2
Hynix HYMP125U64CP8-S6 AB-C
(2R *8PS2-6400U-666-12)
all three have the same timings 6-6-6-18
motherboard asus P5B-V 4 slots (2 yellow 2 black)

Extract from the manual

DIMM support:
A - Supports one module inserted in any slot as Single-channel memory configuration.
B - Supports one pair of modules inserted into either the blue slots or the black slots as
one pair of Dual-channel memory configuration.
C - Supports 3 modules inserted into both the blue and black slots as two pairs of Dualchannel memory confiuration.

2.4 System memory
2.4.1 Overview
The motherboard comes with four Double Data Rate 2 (DDR2) Dual Inline Memory
Modules (DIMM) sockets.
A DDR2 module has same physical dimensions as a DDR DIMM but has a
240-pin footprint compared to the 184-pin DDR DIMM. DDR2 DIMMs are notched
differently to prevent installation on a DDR DIMM socket.
The figure illustrates the location of the DDR2 DIMM sockets:

2.4.2 Memory configurations
You may install 256 MB, 512 MB, 1 GB, and 2 GB unbuffered non-ECC DDR2
DIMMs into the DIMM sockets.

You may install varying memory sizes in Channel A and Channel B. The
system maps the total size of the lower-sized channel for the dual-channel
configuration. Any excess memory from the higher-sized channel is then
mapped for single-channel operation.
Always install DIMMs with the same CAS latency. For optimum compatibility
it is recommended that you obtain memory modules from the same vendor.
If you install four 1 or 2GB memory modules, the system may only recognize
less than 3GB because the address space is reserved for other critical
functions. This limitation appears on Windows® XP 32-bit operation system
which does not support Physical Address Extension (PAE).
If you install Windows® XP 32-bit operation system, a total memory of less
than 3GB is recommended.
The total memory may have 8MB reduction under Single Channel mode, and
16MB reduction under Dual Channel mode because the address space is
reserved for Intel® Quiet System Technology.
Due to chipset limitation, double x16 memory modules or memory modules
with 128MB chips are not supported on this motherboard.

Notes on memory limitations
Due to chipset limitation, this motherboard can only support up to
8 GB on the operating systems listed below. You may install a maximum of
2 GB DIMMs on each slot, but only DDR2-533 and DDR2-667 2 GB density
modules are available for this configuration.
32-bit 64-bit

Some old-version DDR2-800/667 DIMMs may not match Intel®’s
On-Die-Termination (ODT) requirement and will automatically downgrade
to run at DDR2-533. If this happens, contact your memory vendor to check
the ODT value.
Due to chipset limitation, DDR2-800 with CL=4 will be downgraded to run
at DDR2-667 by default setting. If you want to operate with lower latency,

Due to chipset limitation, DDR2-667 with CL=3 will be downgraded to run
at DDR2-533 by default setting. If you want to operate with lower latency,
adjust the memory timing manually.

Answer: vladmed174,

Question: Several gigabytes are lost after using "Acronis Disk Director 12"

I realize that I made the gravest mistake by using this not good program. It was necessary to transfer from disk D to C, gigabytes, but at the second stage a lot of errors got out. And the computer rebooted, the gigabytes that I wanted to transfer from D were lost in the rush, C remained with the same volume. I lost quite a lot of gigs ... Help me get them back, I saw a similar topic, but I didn’t really understand anything. I have Windows 8.1x64, if you need anything else I will provide, just help please!

Answer: As for the software, I agree, I think it’s hard to find ideal programs (most likely to create too), in fact you look at them, they are the same, but they don’t seem to be, you’re lucky if the program does something bad, but not very bad. For some, I read after Acronis that the D drive stopped opening at all, since this didn’t happen to me, I don’t understand the computer field of hard drives, and I had to find something that would do everything for me, it turned out to be a bad experience, but later it turned out that he helped me, investigating this problem, I did learn something ... I know a lot about computers, but it’s completely impossible to know a computer and it certainly won’t hurt to increase experience, albeit in dangerous ways. True ... the main thing is not to overdo it with danger)))

Question: The disk speed is 64 megabytes. Health 25% since 2012. The disk is still alive

Guys help me with advice if it's not difficult. I don't know much about hard drives, that's why it's important to me. understand the logic of what is happening. Let's start in order. What and how I had I remember perfectly well.

In 2008 I built a PC. There was a 320 GB hard drive from Seagate. In 2009, I bought a 1500 GB disk from Seagate, model ST31500341AS, for 5000 rubles. From 2008 to 2012 I did not touch the computer, did not use any software.

When in 2012 I climbed into the same Crystal Disk Info, there were a lot of alarms and Warning inscription. Well, what should I do with it, I just scored. Then I used different programs for the hard drive from the collection (resuscitator). So they all wrote that the state of "health" of the disk is 25%, that disk is 1500GB. That disk is 320GB, its health is 30%.
The forecasts of these programs were very deplorable, the disks had to live from 2 to 6 months (I don’t remember exactly).

So you want a joke:
That disk is 1500 GB, I used it as a file storage for TORRENTS. From 2009 to 2014, from 12 noon to 2:00 am, I always had a torrent client turned on, which distributed torrents. Sometimes there were 30 hands, there were 60 and 90 and even 120 hands. Distributions like 15 seasons of MythBusters, 100 gigs distribution, but this is the biggest one. Let me remind you that this disk is "healthy" by 25%.

That disk is the system one, for the OS and toys, it is 320 GB. Since 2008, it has never there was not a single torrent. This disc is 30% healthy.

Both discs are still alive, in 2017! So you ask, what are you writing to us then?

My father and I did a disk speed test, Father was very surprised why my disk gives out 64 megabytes for writing and reading. For example, my Father has a 2009-2010 disc, gives out easily 180 megabyte. My father explained to me that anything less than 100 is the standard of the Stone Age. What problems do I have in the system.

Added after 9 minutes
p.s.
Forgot to mention something. For prevention purposes, in 2013, I launched MHDD. I first completely erased both disks, then I wrote a unit to each sector of each disk, so that at the end I could look at a certain "PING", a ping of each sector. So there were no slow and bad sectors on the 320 disk. There were no bad ones on the 1500 disk, slow from 3-5. The disk does not need care, the firmware itself manages bad sectors. I have never defragmented. Why if it, in principle, does not happen more than 20-25%.

Answer: What do you want to hear in response to your essay?
The death of a hard drive is just as unpredictable as the death of a person.

Question: Lost gigabytes

Faced this problem:
I have a hdd 1tb (or rather 931gb) transcend storejet 25d3.
It is filled with 110 gigabytes, and when I try to write something more than 4 GB to it, it says that there is no free space and offers to clear it, although there is still 821 GB free.
Can you suggest what is the problem.