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3TB drive and WinXP


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Just bought a 3TB WD drive and now discover that XP can't see drives over 2 TB.

The disk appears to be fine otherwise, did a quick test with GSmartControl and it passed.

 

Device Model:     WDC WD30EJRX-89G3VY0
Serial Number:    WD-WCC4N2REE8AH
LU WWN Device Id: 5 0014ee 26475a2d4
Firmware Version: 80.00A80
User Capacity:    3,000,592,982,016 bytes [3.00 TB]
Sector Sizes:     512 bytes logical, 4096 bytes physical
Device is:        Not in smartctl database [for details use: -P showall]
ATA Version is:   8
ATA Standard is:  ACS-2 (revision not indicated)
Local Time is:    Sat Jan 13 00:50:49 2018 CST
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

 

I was going to use this  in an external USB drive box, I copy files to it from my XP PC, I also use it plugged into my media player. Almost certainly that is running Linux, though it isn't stated.

So if I boot my PC in Linux and use it to format and partition the disk as say one 2 TB partition and one 1 TB, both NTSF, that should work with both?

Are there any other choices I need to make when doing that?

Could that arrangement also work as an internal, booting XP from one of the partitions (was thinking of setting it up with a backup OS in case the current internal fails)?

If you are going to tell me I should upgrade to Win7/8/10, thanks, but I'm not going to do that yet.

 

 

Edited by Asp
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On 9/11/2012 at 2:33 PM, Comos said:

Warning (added in 2017): This applies solely to USB 3.0 WD My Book Essential and WD My Book Disks manufactured before 2015 (which report as 4Kn)! Later Disks report as 512e, use GPT and, hence, are not usable by XP!  :(

Hi everyone,

as I started a discussion about an issue when running a 3TB HDD on WinXP 32bit in a USB 3.5" drive enclousure, link:

today ,I can confirm, that a external USB HDD from WD, currently 3TB My Book Essential does have full capacity support on Win XP 32bit. (maybe in Win Y2K also)

Today I have bought it and have 3TB in full armor :thumbup

Seems that the additional WD HW logic takes care of the rest and the related links were speaking the truth:

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/itproxpsp/thread/8fd33944-0202-4dff-a432-356e2b231f2e/

http://community.wdc.com/t5/External-Drives-for-PC/Exceeding-2Tb-limit-questions/td-p/234694

 

:boring:

 

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17 minutes ago, dencorso said:

today ,I can confirm, that a external USB HDD from WD, currently 3TB My Book Essential does have full capacity support on Win XP 32bit. (maybe in Win Y2K also)

Today I have bought it and have 3TB in full armor

Seems that the additional WD HW logic takes care of the rest and the related links were speaking the truth:

Yes, it appears they have a dongle in those USB enclosures.

However, I just have a new bare drive and an old USB -SATA enclosure.

 

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The only combination known to work is HDDs which expose 4kiB sectors (the so-called 4Kn disks), when connected through USB via a SATA/USB bridge that also expose 4kiB sectors, instead of emulating 512-byte sectors. I think @rloew did identify some such bridges, IIRR. There aren't many 4Kn HDDs on market nowadays, and I think none is WDC. @rloew used a Samsung in his experiments, IIRR. Since you have an old USB -SATA enclosure and just bought the HDD, I think you should try to exchange the WDC disk for the right model of Samsung, and then try again. My 2 ¢ only, of course!

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44 minutes ago, dencorso said:

The only combination known to work is HDDs which expose 4kiB sectors (the so-called 4Kn disks), when connected through USB via a SATA/USB bridge that also expose 4kiB sectors, instead of emulating 512-byte sectors. I think @rloew did identify some such bridges, IIRR. There aren't many 4Kn HDDs on market nowadays, and I think none is WDC. @rloew used a Samsung in his experiments, IIRR. Since you have an old USB -SATA enclosure and just bought the HDD, I think you should try to exchange the WDC disk for the right model of Samsung, and then try again. My 2 ¢ only, of course!

That may be the only method that lets you see a single 3 TB disk, but how about when each partition is below 2TB?

I guess I have to  experiment.  Just a pain as I have a 1.5 TB disk in the enclosure now, that is starting to fail, so I wanted to copy it  to the new disk before swapping them and then discarding the old one. But I'll have to shuffle them in and out.

I could even live with formatting the disk as 2TB for now. Took me several years to almost fill 1.5 TB, and I could reformat it later if I upgrade the OS. Exchanging the disk would be a hassle if it's possible at all. I particularly wanted to use the WD Purple range in any case.

Edited by Asp
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Problem lies in the MBR, which cannot index more than 4294967296 sectors (hence 4294967296 * 512 = 2TiB, while 4294967296 * 4kiB = 8TiB), so that, to go above 2TiB with 512-bit sectors (no matter whether real or emulated) MBR is no-go and one needs GPT (which XP does not understand). Paragon has a GPT driver for XP (according to @jaclaz), but it only works for internal, not for USB connected, HDDs. So, to get XP to understand a > 2TiB HDD connected through USB, 4Kn disks are necessary (but not sufficient, the SATA-USB bridge also must pass the 4kiB sectors on to the USB stack).

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There is an extensive and detailed thead about the matter.

XP is limited not by the MBR, but rather from other system files, on Windows 7 it works fine. (although the partitions need to be created manually):

jaclaz

 

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My 4Kn Drive is a Toshiba, not a Samsung. The brand should not matter.

Many of the earlier USB Enclosures and USB/SATA Adapters translate 512e to 4Kn when a >2TiB Hard Drive is connected. These would be compatible with XP as a data Disk only.
The Drive would not be unusable as an Internal or eSATA Drive with any OS as it would not be formatted properly.

A 4Kn Drive should work with a modern USB Enclosure or Adapter. The Drive would not be usable internally or with eSATA with XP.

You can partition your 3TB Drive as one or more Partitions, totalling 2TiB or less, and use it internally and with non-translating USB Enclosures with any OS.
Some Partitioning tools may not let you do this as they may think you have less than 1TB. You will probably have to reformat if you expand the Drive later.

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As above, I plugged it into internal SATA and Windows XP storage management couldn't see it at all. In a generic SATA-USB caddy, same.

Put it in my old WD Elements enclosure.  In USB this was detected as a 2 TB drive that I could format and partition; also readable for my media player.

(I had thought most robust would be prepping via SATA; but it's the opposite).

So at least I have a working new drive slightly larger in size than  the original 1.5TB it replaced.

I don't suppose it's possible to use the  last 1 TB, even if only through say Linux, without screwing up the "XP friendly" part?

Edited by Asp
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4 hours ago, rloew said:

Assuming your enclosure is not translating to 4K, you would need a hybrid MBR/GPT.

I have tools for creating them.

I'm interested ... have you, or could you, explain the process?

I do need it to work  in the USB box also when plugged into a LInux  media player, not just XP.

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It is possible :unsure: that this is a yet different case, i.e. the "old" WD elements case is "locked" (by design) to a max 2Tb disk drive.

If this is the case there is in it a translation of sorts, but instead of being a 512 -> 4 KB one it is a *larger size* > 2Tb size, and this "tricks" the XP into mounting/accessing the disk, but since this happens because of the translation in the case, *any* OS will see only 2 Tb, as that is the max amount allowed to pass through.

@All - side note

Anyone has an Asus motherboard and a large drive and is willing to experiment with the Asus unlocker?

Maybe (just maybe) it is not strictly Asus specific, and will also work on similar motherboards with same chipsets :dubbio:

https://event.asus.com/mb/2010/Disk_Unlocker/

jaclaz

 

 

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18 hours ago, Asp said:

I'm interested ... have you, or could you, explain the process?

I do need it to work  in the USB box also when plugged into a LInux  media player, not just XP.

You would need my RFDISK Partitioning Tool.

The procedure would be as follows:

1. Install GPT and Partition as desired using Linux, Windows 7+, etc.
2. If a Bootable Disk or a Hybrid MBR/GPT is not recognized by any planned OS, Install a Multi-Boot Profile with RFDISK.
3. Install duplicate Partitions into MBR for Partitions below 2TiB.
4. Format FAT Partitions with my RFORMAT Tool to insure 4K Alignment and maximize performance.

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4 hours ago, rloew said:

You would need my RFDISK Partitioning Tool.

OK, I'll give it a (cautious) try. Complicated by my having to stash 1.5Tb of data now in the disk somewhere.

Do you have a page about this?

Is the "multi-boot profile"  something for Windows, or is it all on the disk in question?

 

 

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There is a brief description of RFDISK on my Website. The free Demo includes instructions.  You would need to purchase it to create the Partitions.

The Multi-Boot Profile is my implementation of Multiple Boot. It is installed in the MBR of the Disk and works with all operating systems.

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