Tom's Hardware > Forum > Storage > Hard Disks > [solved] 1TB HD103UJ appears as a 32MB drive

[solved] 1TB HD103UJ appears as a 32MB drive

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - [solved] 1TB HD103UJ appears as a 32MB drive

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lord_fabs   06-04-2008 at 03:30:10 PM

Hello everyone.

I bought a Samsung HD103UJ (1TB) a couple of days ago; but I'm unable to get it to work properly. My motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-965P-DS4. I can only get the drive to appear as a 32MB drive. Once or twice I have had to unplug the sata cable while the bios screens showed, as it would pause on drive detection when it reached the socket the 1TB drive was connected to; however the drive would work if I plugged it in after windows started -- still appearing as a 32MB drive. I'm not sure what there is that I can try to resolve this problem... Could it just be a defective drive?

Thanks for reading ^_^


Message edited by lord_fabs on 06-05-2008 at 09:53:33 AM
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San Pedro   06-04-2008 at 03:39:28 PM
- 0 +

What version of Windows you using? Have your formatted the drive yet?

Reply to San Pedro
lord_fabs   06-04-2008 at 03:41:54 PM
- 0 +

In windows disk manager, and in the windows vista installation, the drive appears as a 32MB drive... And (in case you were wondering), I can create a working partition in this tiny space.

Reply to lord_fabs
Jim_L9   06-04-2008 at 03:56:54 PM
- 0 +

It sounds like you need to update the BIOS on your Gigabyte MB.

Reply to Jim_L9
lord_fabs   06-04-2008 at 04:17:21 PM
- 0 +

That's a logical conclusion, however i'm unsure as to how to update the bios. I'll see if I can find a guide. If it works out, i'll post again.

Reply to lord_fabs
johnnyq1233   06-04-2008 at 04:51:55 PM
- 0 +

Hang on a sec. That's not his only drive obviously! What size are your other drive/drives?
Surely they are not showing 32MB. Does this drive have a 32MB buffer?
Have you made the drive active in disk manager? Because you won't be able to format it until it is.
And most likely it's a SATAII drive. Does your MoBo support SATAII (SATA300) drives? If not there should be a jumper on the back of the drive do run SATAI (SATA150).
Hope this helps.

------------------------------ Intel C2D E8400 @3.0GHZ, Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3L motherboard, 4GB OCZ vista platinum DDR2-1066 , Seagate320GBsataII 16MB HDD, BFG GTS250oc 512 GDDR3...3Dvision glasses and samsung 120HZ screen.
 Reply to johnnyq1233
skittle   06-04-2008 at 05:33:40 PM
- 0 +

if it didnt support SATAII, it simply would not show up. That is not his problem. Update your BIOS, then format it with the tools that came with the disk.

------------------------------ macgirlfriend:
"Hey I don't get you people, the people on insanely mac were so much nicer"
 Reply to skittle
MrLinux   06-04-2008 at 05:35:01 PM
- 0 +

Try running Samsung's drive diagnostic/configuration utility, I have heard of larger (Samsung) drives incorrectly reporting capacity due to the internal configuration data being screwed-up.

Reply to MrLinux
MrLinux   06-04-2008 at 06:23:57 PM
- 0 +

Try running this:
http://www.samsung.com/global/busi [...] _Tool.html

As always, disconnect any other drives before running (etc. etc...)

Reply to MrLinux
rsetter1   06-04-2008 at 06:38:03 PM
- 0 +

Did you format the drive?

Reply to rsetter1
Paperdoc   06-04-2008 at 10:35:45 PM
- 0 +

OK, this mobo has full support for SATA II, and ALL such boards have BIOS support for 48-bit LBA, so a BIOS update is not the issue. But the 32 MB size limit can arise another way. When you partitioned and formatted the drive in Disk Management, what File System did you use? Some of Microsoft's OS's (I'm not sure about Vista) allow you to make a FAT-32 Partition but will NOT make one larger than 32 MB. You should be partitioning it with an NTFS File System; that will let you make any partition size up to one full-capacity volume.

EDIT: This morning I realized (as SomeJoe7777 did below) that I focussed on the 32, and missed the M vs. G thing. The FAT32 limit is 32 GB. So I figured unless OP made a mistake, the FAT32 limit is NOT involved here at all.


Message edited by Paperdoc on 06-05-2008 at 03:28:47 PM
Reply to Paperdoc
SomeJoe7777   06-04-2008 at 10:44:07 PM
- 0 +

Windows XP will format a FAT32 partition up to 32GB, not 32MB. If his drive is actually showing as 32MB, the file system is not the problem.

------------------------------ - SomeJoe7777

"Did he dazzle you with his extensive knowledge of mineral water? Or was it his in-depth analysis of, uh, uh, Marky Mark that finally reeled you in?" - Troy Dyer (Ethan Hawke), Reality Bites, 1994
 Reply to SomeJoe7777
lord_fabs   06-05-2008 at 09:53:10 AM
- 0 +

MrLinux's link to ES tool turned out to solve my problem... although it was a little bit strange. I restored the native size, but it seemed to revert when i turned the computer off. Later on I booted the floppy disk again and ran ES tool again, and restored the native size, but I also formatted the MFT which may or may not have fixed it. At any rate it seems fine now. Thanks for everyone's help!


Message edited by lord_fabs on 06-05-2008 at 09:57:42 AM
Reply to lord_fabs
MrLinux   06-05-2008 at 04:37:22 PM
- 0 +

Glad it's sorted.
This is now the third time I have heard of a 1TB Sammy reporting the wrong drive size, I'm beggining to think they may have a firmware issue...

Reply to MrLinux
antych   07-05-2008 at 05:11:09 PM
- 0 +

I just purchased this drive and I have the same problem. First I connected it to my current windows installation, it worked fine, 1TB and I could create partitions. Then I wanted to install Windows XP sp2 on it but it reported 33MB. I used some tool to restore it to full capacity and tried again. Each time I try to install Windows, it switches to 33MB capacity. Once that happens it reports it in bios and widnows and I have to restore it again. I have pretty modern mobo P35-DQ6, something is not right with this drive.

Reply to antych
antych   07-06-2008 at 06:08:23 PM
- 0 +

I got around this problem by switching my controller to AHCI mode. I could install any system on it as long as SATA driver were loaded.

Reply to antych
COJLOKS   04-16-2009 at 08:28:50 AM
- 0 +

i have a similar problem with my hd103uj samsung 1tb, bios recognize hd perfectly, but when i log on windows, puff, my hd isn´t there! :(

i already read many forums about this problem but i have a little rock in my way, my motherboard not support sata II ( sata300). the hd have jumpers slot behind but i cant find the correct configuration. doesn´t exist any manual for this! HOW CAN I DO FOR RUN ON WIN XP WITH SATA 150 CONFIG MY HD?


Message quoted 1 times
Reply to COJLOKS
Paperdoc   04-16-2009 at 05:30:46 PM
- 0 +

Cojloks, go to the Samsung website FAQs at

 

http://www.samsung.com/global/busi [...] rderNum=10

 

This offers instructions and a diagram at

 

http://www.samsung.com/global/syst [...] jumper.jpg

 

for setting a jumper to force the drive to go into 1.5 Gbps mode.

 

If that does not work, this is from the Samsung website

 

http://www.samsung.com/global/busi [...] ppmi=1155#

 

for data on your drive. On the downloads tab, choosing the User Manual v4 Adobe logo gets you this .pdf file of installation hints.

 

http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/ [...] 200704.pdf

 

Note the text box under the SATA Installation diagram. It refers you to a set of FAQ's that includes this on how to force 1.5 Gbps operation:

 

http://www.samsung.com/global/busi [...] orderNum=5

 

It offers six different downloadable files (at the bottom) and provides instructions for how to use each, depending on what hardware you have. 4 of the utilities use software to set the HDD to work at 1.5 Gbps; the other two undo this and return it to 3.0 Gbps.


Message edited by Paperdoc on 04-16-2009 at 05:42:19 PM
Reply to Paperdoc
Xenonvector927   04-18-2009 at 01:38:31 PM
- 0 +

Lol. This is why I don't buy Samsungs. IMHO Western Digitals are more expensive but more reliable. Samsung monitors are great though!! :) Oh, and congrats on the 4000+ reads, very popular thread. Obviously a very common problem (which shows that it is not unique to a particular motherboard or hardware configuration, it's a problem with the drives themselves).

------------------------------ --------> http://tinyurl.com/n7un7s E2200 @ 2.7 stock cooling Load 48C
Kingston 800MHz @ 5-4-4-17
Gigabyte 9800GT OC Load **C copper Zalman
Corsair 550W PSU, 4x120mm CoolerMaster 90CFM case fans.
 Reply to Xenonvector927
ALZHANS   05-02-2009 at 01:07:53 AM
- 0 +

Sorry WD friends, but I decided NOT to buy thsi crap anymore, as I suffered THREE crashes within 6 months, one of which I lost some personal data, even though the disk was just 2 months old. A 320 disappeared completely, and I had months to recover the data, another 465 wrecked just 3 months old, it stores data, when it wants and data just becomes lost when slowly, fast, large and small amounts.

My Gigabyte MA-690G-S3H detected just fine samsung HD 103UJ, now I just connected another 103SI and Bios seems to be thinking its 33 MB, XP thinks its 8GB and formatting just produces an error afer a few miniutes. obviously Gigabyte saves the "in-worst-case-to-be-restored" BIOS in the vulnerable section, just on every hd. I have to try the ES tool solution and shall be telling you right ahead of what the result was turning out to produce.

MACHINES ARE digital IDIOTS !!!!

Reply to ALZHANS
Anonymous   12-18-2009 at 10:43:30 AM
- 0 +

using the samsung ES tool to reset the disk size to native size and erasing the MBR solved the problem for me too.. something made it show as 32 mb though i think either windows setup did before or maybe the raid mode did something to the MFT

Reply to Anonymous
jnova   12-23-2009 at 10:29:16 AM
- 0 +

i have the same issue with 2 1TB HDS. the funny thing is wheni bought them and installed as separate HDS (one to same all my data junk (movies, software, pictures, University crap... etc stc.) and the other to save my music production and my music library) they were recognize fine and worked like that for around 7 months without a fail. a week ago, my computer crash and decided to go with the new intel processors i5 and a gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P and when i connected the drives boom! both of them show as 32MB and i been really afraid to touch them and do anything in order for me not to loose all that data. =/ oh, yeah. I have connecting to 3 or 4 different machines running different OS and its the same... Tiger, leopard, xp, vista and win 7. So my question is... what are the chances of me loosing all my info running that ES-tool?

thanks
Jose

Reply to jnova
jnova   12-23-2009 at 10:30:33 AM
- 0 +

sorry...was a double post


Message edited by jnova on 12-23-2009 at 10:31:23 AM
Reply to jnova
AngkorRising   12-23-2009 at 08:08:23 PM
- 0 +

I have the same problems. I bought a 1TB Seagate hard drive. It was working fine. After 1 week, my 1TB hard drive show only 32 MB. Anyone know what the problem is? Any help is appreciated.

Reply to AngkorRising
magnus81   02-02-2010 at 12:30:53 PM
- 0 +

ALZHANZ and jnova:

Did you solve your problem with the disks or did you loose all your data??

The same thing happened to me. I have a lot of data that i dont want to loose on the 1TB.

It all happened when i installed a new 2TB samsung.
As i connected that one the 1TB started showing 32mb in bios and 8gb in windows.

Please help me! I dont want to loose all my data!

/Magnus

Reply to magnus81
darkgamer   02-02-2010 at 08:07:23 PM
- 0 +

COJLOKS wrote :

i have a similar problem with my hd103uj samsung 1tb, bios recognize hd perfectly, but when i log on windows, puff, my hd isn´t there! :(

i already read many forums about this problem but i have a little rock in my way, my motherboard not support sata II ( sata300). the hd have jumpers slot behind but i cant find the correct configuration. doesn´t exist any manual for this! HOW CAN I DO FOR RUN ON WIN XP WITH SATA 150 CONFIG MY HD?



Sounds like you just need to format the drive sir, if you are running windows vista, or windows 7 you can do this from within the OS.

Reply to darkgamer
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