Question 30GB IDE Quantum Fireball IDE Drive only showing as 10mb capacity...

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sdss9462

Commendable
Nov 21, 2016
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Hi Folks,

I come upon a variety of used hard drives via the Goodwill and similar places. I format them, check them for errors and whatnot, and then re-purpose or sell them. I've encountered a problem recently that has me stumped. I found a 30GB IDE Quantum Fireball hard drive, model LC30AT, and when hooked up to my computer, it shows up in the disk management console as only 10mb, with no way to access the rest of the drive's capacity and no other visible partitions. I tried wiping it with Killdisk, but til it only shows a single partition with a size of 10mb. I'm using a Windows 10 64bit laptop and an IDE/SATA-to-USB adapter. A bit of internet research has lead me to believe that this limitation may be related to something called a Dynamic Drive Overlay, which is something I've never heard of before, as it seems to predate the beginning of my PC experience. Can anyone advise as to how I might be able to completely wipe this drive and access it's full capacity?

NOTE: The problem drive came from a DVR box. I'm not sure if that is relevant or not. Nearly all of my salvage drives come from DVRs and only these few Quantum Fireball drives have had the 10mb problem.

Any help at all will be greatly appreciated. It's really more in the interest of expanding my knowledge, as I don't expect the drive itself to be worth much or of much use. Thanks in advance.
 
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Hmm, best advice I can give here is to find yourself a real IDE controller add-in card and give that a try.

Or get a legacy system with an IDE controller. You don't have to go back terribly far. Computers from the late 2000s still had IDE controllers or PCI slots you could put IDE controllers in.

Or the drive simply doesn't work.

These days, most people switch over to compact flash to replace IDE hard drives. 32GB/64GB/128GB was larger than most of the drives available at the time. And when they stop making compact flash, I'm sure someone will make a competent and cost effective SSD adapter.
 
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Eximo said:
Hmm, best advice I can give here is to find yourself a real IDE controller add-in card and give that a try.

Or get a legacy system with an IDE controller. You don't have to go back terribly far. Computers from the late 2000s still had IDE controllers or PCI slots you could put IDE controllers in.

Or the drive simply doesn't work.
Click to expand...

I've just tried the drive in a desktop via a IDE card in the PCI slot and got the same result. Disk Management and whatnot can see the drive, but only sees it as 10mb.

A few weeks ago, I had found two other similar Quantum Fireball drives, (another 30GB and a 20GB,) and they had the same problem. I figured they were bad, so I threw them out. But now, with a third having the same issue, I figure there has to be another explanation.
 
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Grobe said:
What does Gparted says about disk capacity ?
Click to expand...

I installed GpartedLive to a USB drive and booted from the USB drive with the Quantum Drive attached. (I used a spare windows XP desktop motherboard, with the problem drive attached via a IDE PCI card.) GParted sees the problem drive as unallocated with 9.77mb of available space. I can create a new partition of 9mb, but that seems to be my only option.

NOTE: The problem drive came from a DVR box. I'm not sure if that is relevant or not. Nearly all of my salvage drives come from DVRs and only these few Quantum Fireball drives have had the 10mb problem.
 
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Alabalcho said:
On your desktop-with-IDE-interface: What does BIOS say when you check this drive?
Click to expand...

What do you mean by check the drive? If I boot into setup on my Acer laptop with the problem drive attached via the USB-to-IDE adapter, where do I look within the setup menu in order to check the drive?
 
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sdss9462 said:
What do you mean by check the drive? If I boot into setup on my Acer laptop with the problem drive attached via the USB-to-IDE adapter, where do I look within the setup menu in order to check the drive?
Click to expand...
He was probably assuming it was attached to a desktop computer.

Well - if even Gparted doesn't recognise the drive as nothing else that what it have appears all the time, then assume the only options left is low level formatting.

That is - to be mentioned - something completely different than software/os formatting, and you probably have to get a tool from the drive manufactor in order to do that - if it is even possible.
Or you may be lucky and find a propriate tool on Ultimate boot CD toolkit.
 
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sdss9462 said:
I've just tried the drive in a desktop via a IDE card in the PCI slot and got the same result. Disk Management and whatnot can see the drive, but only sees it as 10mb.
Click to expand...
sdss9462 said:
What do you mean by check the drive? If I boot into setup on my Acer laptop with the problem drive attached via the USB-to-IDE adapter, where do I look within the setup menu in order to check the drive?
Click to expand...
As @Grobe correctly assumed - I meant connecting that drive to that desktop you've said you have.
 
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You might like to search hddoracle.com. There was a long thread about Quantums and their firmware.

Otherwise examine the drive with CrystalDiskInfo.

If the drive's capacity has been cut with a HPA, then try to restore its full capacity with HDAT2.

That said, I agree that the drive is probably "firmware locked".
 
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popatim said:
The drive is locked because it's not unlocked by the Tivo.
There used to be a qunlock utility that you use.
Good luck on the fun little project.
Click to expand...

This indeed seems to be the issue. I did some googling regarding the qunlock program and whatnot and it all seems like more work than I want to keep putting in on this. Hah. But at least now I know.

Thanks so much everyone who posted and tried to help. This is a great community.
 
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@Spildit describes himself as a data recovery amateur. He maintains a free and open forum at hddoracle.com. While he is not in the business of purchasing HDDs, he seems to have an interest in "firmware locked" HDDs. I think he enjoys the challenge of unlocking them. If you would otherwise throw away your HDDs, I would ask you to consider sending them to him for research purposes.

BTW, his forum does have a section where you can freely advertise your HDDs for sale.
 
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