Question 8TB partition damaged; Inadvertently mirrored and now cannot regain full storage capacity ?

[DaddyFatStax]

Evidently, I'm out of my league.

I had two 8TB Seagate Iron Wolf drives in an enclosure (Mobius). As I was swapping out drives to check contents, I left one of the Seagates in and put in a 4TB drive that was apparently mirrored. It began writing the file directory to the 8TB seagate, clearly overwriting the boot partition.

I'm less concerned about the content, as the other drive has most of what I need. I'd like to be able to reclaim the full capacity so I can take full advantage of the storage.

After a couple of formats and an attempt to fix the MBR, I'm now left with a 1.4 TB drive and I'm convinced there must be an easy fix with DMDE but am not familiar with the interface. Would value some help from any experts - as I've seen some strong feedback and guidance regarding DMDE from others.

Attached is a screenshot. It looks like the mirror partition made it onto the drive - can I recover or rebuild the 8TB partition again?

 

[DaddyFatStax]

 

[fzabkar]

The problem is that your old USB enclosure has a 32-bit LBA limit. You need to replace it with a more recent one.

8TB - (3 x 2TiB) = 1.4TB​

 

[DaddyFatStax]

You’re right, that old enclosure is the only way I can bring the device online to modify it.

The möbius only brings up a “USB” drive, and DMDE indicates the drive cannot be opened at this time …

 

[DaddyFatStax]

The problem is that your old USB enclosure has a 32-bit LBA limit. You need to replace it with a more recent one.

8TB - (3 x 2TiB) = 1.4TB​

https://imgur.com/a/qeNOTp8

View: https://imgur.com/a/qeNOTp8

 

[fzabkar]

Can you attach your drive to a SATA port inside your computer?

 

[DaddyFatStax]

Can you attach your drive to a SATA port inside your computer?

Unfortunately, I only have laptops. So it’s external enclosures only. I’ve another 8TB Iron Wolf which opens fine in the enclosure.

Thanks for weighing in btw, appreciate added insight

 

[dwd999]

Evidently, I'm out of my league.

I had two 8TB Iron Wolf drives in an enclosure (Mobius). As I was swapping out drives to check contents, I left one of the Seagates in and put in a 4TB drive that was apparently mirrored. It began writing the file directory to the 8TB seagate, clearly overwriting the boot partition.

I'm less concerned about the content, as the other drive has most of what I need. I'd like to be able to reclaim the full capacity so I can take full advantage of the storage.

After a couple of formats and an attempt to fix the MBR, I'm now left with a 1.4 TB drive and I'm convinced there must be an easy fix with DMDE but am not familiar with the interface. Would value some help from any experts - as I've seen some strong feedback and guidance regarding DMDE from others.

Attached is a screenshot. It looks like the mirror partition made it onto the drive - can I recover or rebuild the 8TB partition again?

You might be better off using a partitioning tool like Gparted to simply create a new GPT partition table header and format the drive as NTFS. That should give you the full 8TB capacity.

 

[DaddyFatStax]

You might be better off using a partitioning tool like Gparted to simply create a new GPT partition table header and format the drive as NTFS. That should give you the full 8TB capacity.

Thanks for the suggestion. Given that I can’t access the drive from the original Mobius (it’s shows up as an unreadable usb), would I be able to make the header change in another, 32 bit drive enclosure but have it seen/format it from the Mobius device?

Not familiar with Gparted so I’ll check that out now.

 

[DaddyFatStax]

You might be better off using a partitioning tool like Gparted to simply create a new GPT partition table header and format the drive as NTFS. That should give you the full 8TB capacity.

Does GParted have a windows interface within the OS?

All my research shows it requires a bootable drive. Went through the steps, created a bootable drive and the program hangs after selecting several preferences upon boot.

Update: I’m now able to get to the GParted interface wherein the drive is still seen as limited in space. I presume that’s either the partition header or the drive enclosure limitation (remember, in the Mobius it comes up as an unreadable USB drive).

Screenshots to follow.

 

[DaddyFatStax]

 

[dwd999]

You could use the View, Device Information, menu on one of your drives that works to see how Mobius prefers all of the settings.

You should be able to select Device, Create Partition Table, GPT, to create a new table that supports all 8TB. Then select the Partition menu, New, NTFS and have full access.

 

[DaddyFatStax]

You could use the View, Device Information, menu on one of your drives that works to see how Mobius prefers all of the settings.

You should be able to select Device, Create Partition Table, GPT, to create a new table that supports all 8TB. Then select the Partition menu, New, NTFS and have full access.

Thanks for the guidance. I was able to do this, albeit on the 32 bit drive enclosure. It still would only allow for a format of approximately 1.4 tb after deleting the partition. When attempting from the Mobius, the drive still shows up as an unusable usb drive.

Using GParted while the drive is in the Mobius shows no sign of the drive, so I can’t seem to format it or manage it differently from the one device that might allow for a greater capacity.

Image of GParted via Mobius below

 

[DaddyFatStax]

 

[DaddyFatStax]

I’m starting to wonder if there’s some kind of lock, or issue with how the enclosure reads the drive. Even after deleting the partition again, and formatting the drive, the Mobius enclosure only reads the device as an unreadable USB drive. The 32bit enclosure reads the device as a limited 1.3 tb drive. GPart is now showing 2tb used drive space

Images below:

 

[DaddyFatStax]

 

[DaddyFatStax]

So that’s what appears to be part of the issue. Screenshot of the second (working) 8tb drive and the non-nonfunctional one that shows up as USB.

Not sure yet how to resolve the hardware recognized differences, but this seems to be a helpful lead; one recognized as a USB device and the other as SCSI

 

[DaddyFatStax]

 

[dwd999]

Can you get any support help from the Mobius company? It would be strange if you needed a 64bit enclosure just to partition and format the drive. Perhaps you might consider a different type of enclosure. I have some "old" hard drives from the pre-SSD/M.2 days. An 8TB, a 4TB and a 2TB. I keep them in Orico 7688C3 enclosures for backing up stuff. Never had any problems with them.