Samsung Spinpoint F DT HD103UJ - capacity error

[Spook Tooth]

Just purchased and fitted the Samsung Spinpoint F DT HD103UJ to my motherboard: Gigabyte GA965P to use as a storage disk, however for the life of me I cannot find how to get the BIOS or Windows XP to detect the correct size of this One Terrabyte hard drive. It's showing 32MB in the BIOS (latest F12 revision) and has a formatable size of 7.87GB in Windows 'Disk Management' utility.

So far the drive has also failed to format at all. I've tried every SATA option going in my BIOS and read all the FAQ etc at Samsung's own HDD site: samsung.com/global/business/hdd/productmodel.do?type=61&subtype=63&model_cd=249" (not allowed to post link) to no avail. The only references to PCs showing under capacity of HDDs relates to non 48bit LBA mode or whatnot and older OSs. For the record, I am running XP Service Pack 2. I've tried the Samsung utilities also. I get nowhere with the ES Tool. It refuses to load correctly despite being burned to CD twice. The Samsung Disk Management utility shows the same information as the BIOS.

The jumper has two positions and I've tried them both despite believing them to be irrelevant since they're meant for SATA ONE compatibility not troubleshooting SATA TWO issues.

If anyone can help please advise. I don't know what else to do just now and just want to get this sorted. I should add that my BIOS gives me no ability to change any of the HDDs access mode or technical setup - ie, capacity is 33MB, cylinder = 64, head = 15, precomp = 0, landing zone = 63 and sector is 63 also. The only variables I can change manually are to change the access mode to large from auto which is a waste of time.

Cheers.

[Dave_5217]

what happens if you just take the jumper out completely?

I don't think any sata drive I've bought has come with a jumper on it, I didn't think they'd need them

[Spook Tooth]

Originally Posted by Dave_5217

what happens if you just take the jumper out completely?

I don't think any sata drive I've bought has come with a jumper on it, I didn't think they'd need them

Samsung are unlike other manufacturers and actually have two jumper positions for enabling the drive to operate on SATA ONE motherboards. This wasn't really applicable to my situation since my board supports SATA II but I had to rule out the possibility.

To clarify, the HDD came without a jumper cap at all. Of course I tried the default (no jumper) position first of all. I mentioned it just to show I'd been thorough and tried to rule out as much as possible that I could think of.

So no the HDD doesn't show full capacity without the jumper cap in at all. I've already discarded the jumper cap and won't be trying it again (it was a last resort).

[Carlh]

Seems a wierd error you have there however to rule anything out then I would recomend that you ensure that the drive is installed on the SATA 1 port of the motherboard, if this stiill doesnt work then its likely that it is a faulty hard drive and I would recomend that you contact our returns team here:

Returns Query

Regards,

[kasavien]

edit: ignore me, thought i was replying to a post by lee which disappeared :s

[Lee @ SCAN]

Originally Posted by kasavien

edit: ignore me, thought i was replying to a post by lee which disappeared :s

Yes... I read it and didn't see he's running SP2 already I read it again and got it removed accordingly.

[Tetras]

Is the drive a relatively new model/tech? It is unlikely (a quick look at your motherboards BIOS update page doesn't show any fixes related to storage) but possible that a BIOS update might help recognise the drive fully (don't do it without knowing it will fix the issue, as BIOS updates carry risk of borking your board).

[Spook Tooth]

Yes, it's the latest 1 Terabyte model from Samsung. They've reviewed it alongside other 1TB models over at The Register/hardware/storage channel and it comes out tops, hence the decision to buy it from Scan the other day.

Though there appear to be a fair few problems for people in RMAing 1TB drives, I didn't think I'd apply somehow (unless I was unlucky) as I'm simply to use it as a storage drive and not as part of a RAID configuration.

My motherboard, Gigabyte GA965P is revision one and uses the latest bios update (F12). No other bios updates are forthcoming as the 965P Intel chipset, as we all know, has been superceded and then some. It's not terribly old though - just a little over a year's ownership for me. It supports SATA II natively. I don't have any other boards with SATA ONE support - the whole trying the jumper settings thing was simply to eliminate any lingering doubt about the drive's setup as one last attempt to get it working.

My motherboard has 3 SATA DVD drives attached to it and I use 2xHitachi 320GB SATA II drives in RAID 0 configuration as my main setup. I've tried attaching just the Samsung 1TB drive in an attempt to load Windows to it using the normal Windows XP setup from CD method but still it comes up as being a shade under 8GB in size.

The Samsung hard drive won't format either, neither long format or quick format methods. It simply gets to the end and reports there has been an error. Scan disk won't run on it either.

There's nothing left to check for me. Unfortunately I cannot check the drive on another motherboard as I'd like to do. Everyone I know locally is still using IDE as their hard drive interface. I aim to upgrade my motherboard and processor in the next few months but that will likely be a little too late for RMA purposes, won't it?

Thanks for looking in. I appreciate your time. If you find anything let me know or if Scan can simply replace this drive with a known working Samsung 1TB model, that would be excellent. Ta.

Ps. Have know submitted a 'returns query', thanks Carlh. This doesn't mean I won't be still be looking for further details on how I can get my BIOS/PC to see the drive and correctly report its size/format properly. So please help me if you can fellas - cheers.

[da_ging]

just googling and it looks like a known problem with gigabyte boards and 1tb drives

i've seen this mentioned a few times but don't know if it works or not
Atola Technology » Blog Archive » Restoring Factory Hard Drive Capacity

[DavidM]

Thank you da_ging

[MaddAussie]

Wot David said

[Spook Tooth]

Unreal! It worked. That tool is amazing. Da_ging, thanks very much - you've saved me loads of hassle and no doubt Scan too. My drive now reads the full whack and formats to 931GB. I'm so happy. Cheers mate. You're too kewll.

[kamtheman]

Hi Guys, I have exactly the same problem (I have 2 of these drives though!) but have not come to the same happy conclusion as Spook.

The wipe tool says the drive is too small to wipe and the Restore tool says I have to remove the drive from the device manager which I have done, both disable and uninstall, and it still says it is in use.

I am at my wits end tbh. All my other Sata drives were so easy to install, these are a real pain. No jumpers were provided, I have tried on both Vista 64 bit and xp sp2.

My raid controllers see it as a drive with 0GB on it, windows doesn't see it at all.

HELP!

[Spook Tooth]

Kamtheman, they are a pain for sure. No jumper caps are needed at all. That's just for running them with SATA ONE controllers (that otherwise wouldn't recognise the drive).

Atola's HDD Capacity Restore Tool requires a restart itself, when you are sure the Samsung HDD device has been removed from Device Manager. That got me first time I tried it. It needs to restart, then it should be able to do its work. Also, recognise and format them singly before building a RAID array.

Hope you get them working okay. Let us know how it went and with any luck, should you need it, Da_ging will be around to help.

[kamtheman]

hello mate, sorry to say I gave up. I got a refund and went for a single seagate drive and hang on until i really need another.

Nothing sata should be that difficult if you ask me!

thanks for the tips anyway.

Kam

[Cosworth]

Originally Posted by da_ging

just googling and it looks like a known problem with gigabyte boards and 1tb drives

So far - touch wood, my Gigabyte GA-EX38-DS5 has recognised the drive and formatted okay showing 931GB available free space and appears to work fine.