Free extra space? check this!!!

[Kynoch]

Filling the partitions as we speak.

I would have thought they would work fine.
Isnt this space basically the unused space on the platters which is not usually used for storage due to the platters been split up to make the total drive size, eg 80gb platters are used to make a 120gb drive, 38gb or so of space which is left over will not be allocated to the drive to use.
As you can see from the maxtor result it must use greater density platters than the seagate drive.

Also doing an 120gb IBM shortly.

[LayZeh]

Those who read the original inquirer article should re-read it, it's been significantly updated with more reliable information.

Original Article: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14597

Relating Article: http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14597

[funnelhead]

well, unless they used a single 310gig platter to make your 120gig i dont see how that theory stands......

unless all the drives are manu'd to top spec, then space simply disabled, in which case the 'extra space' will be dependant on what the biggest drive in that series was + extra for error correction......

one possibllity, a letter from the Inq

I am the "Linux SATA guy".

First, users are usually amused to learn that the capacity of modern hard drives is _unknown_, until it goes through the factory's qualification tests. The 120GB hard drive you purchased may have been physically identical to a 250GB hard drive, but simply it only passed qualification at 120GB.

Intel does the same thing with processors. A 3.0Ghz processor may be sold as 2.4Ghz, simply because it didn't pass qualification at 3.0Ghz but did at a lower clock speed.

Second, in the ATA standard there is a feature known as the "host protected area". This area is accessible from any OS -- but it requires special ATA commands in order to make this area available to the OS.

Third, all hard drives reserve a certain amount of free space to use for reallocation of bad sectors. These "spare sectors" are free space on your drive... completely unused until your hard drive starts finding problems on the physical media.

So this is old news Although the host-protected area (HPA) can be used for insidious purposes such as DRM/CPRM that is completely hidden from the users, most of the "invisible free space" exists for a purpose -- either it's spare sectors for bad sector remapping, or its capacity that didn't pass factory qualification, that you don't want to use anyway.

Feel free to edit/reproduce/publish this email.

Jeff Garzik

[Kynoch]

Filled the partition on the Maxtor with Rar'd DVD images and left 5gig to unpack some too, unpacked 3 of them one by one and they all play fine from the unrar'd images.

[Kynoch]

IBM Deathstar 120gb, 65.7gb in extra space.

[Overlag]

Kynoch....now try filling the 1st partition

[Kynoch]

It was filled, 5gig left free on both partitions to perform unpacking.

[funnelhead]

Thid is terrible news.....now instead of just buying a 250 gig drive, i have to buy three 250 gig drives , see which turns out the biggest and return the other two .....

[funnelhead]

is it just the ghost.exe that has to be of the correct version?? i have norton 2004 so that will be no good... edit : actually just found ghost 2003 on an old apps cd.... where can i find the version number...or is 2003 correct as long as it doesnt get touched by liveupdate?

[Kynoch]

Hmm switched the Maxtor drive to the master drive on the PC and when it booted and started to load XP it came up with "Unable to Authenticate product identification code with microsoft, the OS will now shut down"
The license on this machine is official, but i have never seen this message before??

[funnelhead]

perhaps changing the size of the drive has triggred the activation into thinking you are trying to install on another machine - i think you are allowed 3 changes before windows reckons you're trying to pirate.... have you changed any other bits since activation....?

[Kynoch]

Windows XP Pro Corporate Edition, doesnt have the hardware change limits on it.

A point which i think i should also make is that when i formatted the new partition after creating it, i did a full format and not a quick one, so that so that all of the partition was written to once. So this also came up error free before the partition got filled with data.
With the seagate drive both the new and the old partition were formatted after the new partition was created, then both partitions were filled the same way we filled the maxtor drive up and tested the data.

Hmm

[spazman]

Me and a mate of mine tried this on a 40gb WD hard disk we had lying around, gave us 23gb extra. However, after filling the blighter up to the max and running it hard for a while the hard disk simply died. DOesnt even spin up when you turn the PC on

[funnelhead]

hmmm well you've got me there buddy...I take it you can reverse this process simply by deleting the partition and formatting, and the hard drive will 'forget' about all this space again...

if so may i make a suggestion.

OI SHORTY!!! GET YOUR RAPTORS OUT MAN, YOU'VE GOT WORK TO DO !!


lets face it, storage drives are big and cheap anyway. This mod was meant for Raptors!!

How big will they go?? judging by whats happening, a 74 might go the right side of 100gig now theres a bragging point in ur sig!

mmm still can't think of anything i'm afraid Kynoch....if it comes to me in a dream then i'll be sure to post...

[funnelhead]

mmm after reading spazmans post i retract your orders shorty. I guess that will make a few people think again before trying it 'for a laugh'.

What do you mean by 'running it hard' spazman? dont suppose you mean going for a jog with your laptop.....

[Kynoch]

Right.
Ive got the drive to boot into windows but i had to delete the new partition first, works fine as a slave with the extra partitions, but not as a master.

Cant see why it isnt working as a master drive with the extra partition, and as the os is xp corporate edition it shouldnt lock down after any hardware changes but it is acting like it is for some reason, yet once the partition is deleted and the drive switched to master again, it boots from it, which tells us it cant be anything to do with hardware changes.
We will try this in a windows 2000 environment tomorrow which doesnt require any activation what so ever and report back the findings.