Free extra space? check this!!!

[Steve]

Checksum came back bad again. The drive controller spat its dummy out a few times while trying to read 5GB, so it could be sending corrupt data - I really aren't sure until I get the WD drive going again.

However, from Phaeton having problems as well I'm gonna wager I'll get the same result. Analysis seems to indicate that the MFT is dead on the C: drive of the WD, as the partition is OK, but the drive unviewable (and chkdsk can't retreive any status.) This further supports that some sort of overwriting occurs.

A whimsical theory could be that the space really is there, but due to the way it is being "discovered" it is not being used correctly.

Anyway, that's it for tonight. I'll continue with the fun and games tomorrow (after all, that's all it is - and I'm sure overnight many others will have evidence, especially slashdotters.)

I also fancy finding a copy of the firmware for my Seagate's bigger brother and trying to overwrite my drive. I'll post more details on that tomorrow (woo yet more messing with a drive that's useless anyway.)

[blockers]

keep us posted on how it going kez...may try it with a 60gb at some point...want some more concrete info though

[Steve]

OK the recovery console can't even see the WD drive, so I'm gonna have to restore the first sector, but it looks like the mod caused data to be overwritten in a place it shouldn't have - causing the BSOD and the failure.

I'm gonna try again, of course. All tests should be reproducable - they should all fail the same way

[blockers]

Is the conclusion that it actually knackers your hard drive then?

[Steve]

I think we're at the point of being able to say that blockers, yes, lol.

However, it's fun to try and is recoverable (in the drives I've tried anyway.)

I'm still looking into the firmware trick.

[pedigree]

pedigree - drop the attitude now.

The point of people experimenting is to find out if people are all getting the same results, problems that have occurred, and what was and wasn't successful.
If your not willing to contribute in a polite manner, don't contribute at all.

Gee sorry for trying stop people deleting all their data. In future when someone posts some idea as obviously stupid as this, I'll just sit here all smug knowing that people are going to have precious family photos, documents and email corrupted slowly to the point of no return.

When something is too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

[Allen]

pedigree, you may well be right, this may well be a crock of something not nice, but until something like this is checked by people you know then somebodies gonna try it!

There are ways to get your point accross, and typing

Hello???!?!?!?!!?

No this WILL NOT bork your disk but IT WILL destory your data. STOP SMOKING WEED and come back to reality

is not one of the nicest, is it.

[Steve]

Gee sorry for trying stop people deleting all their data. In future when someone posts some idea as obviously stupid as this, I'll just sit here all smug knowing that people are going to have precious family photos, documents and email corrupted slowly to the point of no return.

When something is too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

Pedigree, mate. I've lost NO FLAMING DATA. I was messing about with drives that weren't valuable. One was unused because it was half dead - the other was in a secondary computer and it fully backed up anyway!

The idea was not stupid AT ALL, though some of the quoted figures were. How the hell is anybody ever supposed to discover things if they don't try? If everybody sat around trying to be a clever git, we'd never discover little quirks like softmods to graphics cards etc.

I don't mind people challenging ideas, but to have the sheer arrogance to just sit there and think they're god's gift is ridiculous.

Just leave the tweakers to do their thing - I KNOW what I'm doing, I AREN'T going to lose any data, so what's the harm in at least trying?

Have a nice day.

[pedigree]

I KNOW what I'm doing, I AREN'T going to lose any data, so what's the harm in at least trying?

I have no doubt at all that you know what youre doign. What Im worried about is the cocky pimply faced youth who thinks he knows what hes doing, gives it a shot with the families PC and destorys everything.

Have you ever told a 2 year old not to touch the cooker element?? Whats the first thing that they do? They touch it dont they. Money for nothing, some people are just a little too greedy arent they

[Agent]

Well stop worrying about it matey - if somone kills their own data through their own stupidity / greed, its their own fault.

Now, lets get back on topic and keep it all polite please guys

[sdp]

I just wanna say that this trick may indeed work fine with certain drives; I mean at work we 'destroke' perfectly good 20-80gb drives to sizes ranging from 3.2gig to 20gig depending on what the customer wants. Perhaps the manufacturers do this as well to meet demand.

It's only a 2 minute process to resize them so I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was possible to re-enable the leftover space.

I should also mention that drives get destroked if there's a problem with them handling, say, 80gig but they work fine with 40gig.

[joshwa]

i have tried this with an 8gb seagate - and it seems to have worked okay, i got an extra 3.9gb at the end by the looks of things - but surely someone with a hard drive window would actually be able to see whether this is writing past where it was previously - perhaps by performing a full surface scan on the first partition (Eg c: ), then marking where that starts and ends, then performing a full surface scan on the second partition...

If I get round to it - I think I'll give it a try.

Personally I think it is something to do with a Virtual Partition being created by Ghost - there was a file on the C: drive called 'VIRTPART' - and testing both partitions with Winbench99 - the C: drive 8gb partition starts around 25mb/sec throughput, and ends about 14mb/sec throughput at the end... the second partition starts at 20.7mb/sec throughput and ends at 14.2mb/sec throughput at the end - which is nearly identical speed to the other partition (they generally tend to slow down near the inside of the platter, as this area spins slower, and has less data there), so I think that ghost is creating a virtual partition near the end of the C: partition, this would account for the corruption of files when both are filled up that others have said has happened...

Josh

[cm_uk]

interesting.....i have a maxtor 120gb 7200rpm ata133 8mb cache

[joshwa]

hello,

i fired up partition magic 7 - the main program wouldn't work, said there was a drive letter error. but part info did work... it gave the following results:

PowerQuest PartitionInfo 7.0 -- Windows NT/2000 Version
Date Generated:  03/13/04  13:49:16
Copyright (c)1994-2001, PowerQuest Corporation
Permission is granted for this utility to be freely copied so long
as it is not modified in any way.  All other rights are reserved.

PowerQuest, makers of PartitionMagic(r), Drive Image(tm), and DriveCopy(tm), can be reached at:
    Voice:  801-437-8900
    Fax:  801-226-8941
    Web site:  http://support.powerquest.com/support.html
    E-mail:  magic@powerquest.com

General System Information:
    Total Physical Memory (bytes):  234,340,352
    Used Physical Memory: (bytes):  74,539,008
    Maximum Page File Size: (bytes):  565,370,880
    Current Page File Size: (bytes):  70,348,800



===========================================================================================================
Disk Geometry Information for Disk 1:    1092 Cylinders,  240 Heads,  63 Sectors/Track
System              PartSect  # Boot BCyl Head Sect  FS    ECyl Head Sect    StartSect     NumSects
===========================================================================================================
                           0  0  80     0    1    1  07    1023  239   63           63   16,510,977
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
  Actual values are:
        0  0  80      0    1    1  07   1091  239   63        63  16510977
                           0  1  00   551    0    1  0F    1023  239   63    8,331,120    8,179,920
Info: Begin C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
  Actual values are:
        0  1  00    551    0    1  0F   1091  239   63   8331120   8179920
                   8,331,120  0  00   551    1    1  07    1023  239   63    8,331,183    8,179,857
Info: End C,H,S values were large drive placeholders.
  Actual values are:
  8331120  0  00    551    1    1  07   1091  239   63   8331183   8179857



===========================================================================================================
Partition Information for Disk 1:    8,062.0 Megabytes
Volume         PartType    Status    Size MB    PartSect  #   StartSect  TotalSects   UsedSects   FreeSects
===========================================================================================================
C:             NTFS        Pri,Boot  8,062.0           0  0          63  16,510,977  16,510,977           0
               ExtendedX   Pri       3,994.1           0  1   8,331,120   8,179,920   8,179,920           0
               EPBR        Log       3,994.1        None --   8,331,120   8,179,920   8,179,920           0
D:             NTFS        Log       3,994.1   8,331,120  0   8,331,183   8,179,857   8,179,857           0


===========================================================================================================
Boot Record for drive C:   (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 63, Type: NTFS)
===========================================================================================================
 1. Jump:                   EB 52 90
 2. OEM Name:               NTFS    
 3. Bytes per Sector:       512
 4. Sectors per Cluster:    8
 5. Reserved Sectors:       0
 6. Number of FATs:         0
 7. Root Dir Entries:       0
 8. Total Sectors:          0
 9. Media Descriptor:       0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT:        0
11. Sectors per Track:      63  (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads:        240  (0xF0)
13. Hidden Sectors:         63  (0x3F)
14. Total Sectors (>32MB):  0  (0x0)
15. Unused:                 0x80008000
16. Total NTFS Sectors:     16510976
17. MFT Start Cluster:      16
18. MFT Mirror Start Clust: 1031936
19. Clusters per FRS:       246
20. Clusters per Index Blk: 1
21. Serial Number:          0x129443F39443D83D
22. Checksum:               0  (0x0)
23. Boot Signature:         0xAA55

===========================================================================================================
Boot Record for drive D:   (Drive: 1, Starting sector: 8,331,183, Type: NTFS)
===========================================================================================================
 1. Jump:                   EB 52 90
 2. OEM Name:               NTFS    
 3. Bytes per Sector:       512
 4. Sectors per Cluster:    8
 5. Reserved Sectors:       0
 6. Number of FATs:         0
 7. Root Dir Entries:       0
 8. Total Sectors:          0
 9. Media Descriptor:       0xF8
10. Sectors per FAT:        0
11. Sectors per Track:      63  (0x3F)
12. Number of Heads:        240  (0xF0)
13. Hidden Sectors:         63  (0x3F)
14. Total Sectors (>32MB):  0  (0x0)
15. Unused:                 0x80008000
16. Total NTFS Sectors:     8179856
17. MFT Start Cluster:      4
18. MFT Mirror Start Clust: 511241
19. Clusters per FRS:       246
20. Clusters per Index Blk: 1
21. Serial Number:          0x64ACEEA3ACEE6ECC
22. Checksum:               0  (0x0)
23. Boot Signature:         0xAA55

the important thing to note is that partition C: starts at sector 63, and ends at 16million something. partition D: starts at sector 8million basically in the MIDDLE of the C: partition... therefore, this so called "claiming extra space" is actually just creating a dodgy partition in the middle of the partition that's already there...

[Steve]

Excellent Josh those are the kind of figures we need.

The question is why is it doing that? Is it purely down to a software bug in GDisk or is it something more than that?

[eldren]

Might I suggest, David, that, in your first post, you put an instruction to read the entire thread before trying it? Just to make sure that no one goes and kills their home PC.

Nice work, those of you who went out and tried this (Kez, Josh, etc.). Made an interesting read.