Question Made an Error setting up WD4 TB drive. Only shows as 2TB!

[SimonJaye]

Hi All,

I have a two bay Icy Box (Model IB-RD3620SU3). Whilst laboring under the misapprehension that putting in two discs as Raid1 would be a good way to back up my data I bought an extra Icybox enclosure to get another pair of discs up and running - 2 of these WD40EZRZ.

Somehow I ended up making a mess of formatting the first disc in and I think I told it that it was 2TB not 4TB. I was just using the basic format options in Windows 10. So in the drives box you can get up it now looks like this :

https://imgur.com/a/eoREZMW

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


I have tried various buttons, and also to see if the dmde program recommended to me in another solution would assist but I am not getting any obvious joy with that. Here is what it looks like in the dmde one:

https://imgur.com/a/RMeqp8g

View: https://imgur.com/a/RMeqp8g


I told it to put a partition in to see if that would some how assist but it has not. The screen print in the dmde application is what it looks like after I put the partition in.

What I am trying to achieve is to get it to a 4TB formatted drive which i can then use to try and start a proper back up system instead of the Raid1 fail.

Hopefully someone is able to assist.

Thanks in advance.

SJ

 

[Aeacus]

It look like your partitioned your HDD in MBR (with max limit of 2TB) rather than in GPT. Here's a guide on how to change the partition table,
link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...management/change-an-mbr-disk-into-a-gpt-disk

When possible, always use GPT since MBR is borderline obsolete with several limitations compared to GPT.
Further reading: https://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

 

[SimonJaye]

It look like your partitioned your HDD in MBR (with max limit of 2TB) rather than in GPT. Here's a guide on how to change the partition table,
link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/wi...management/change-an-mbr-disk-into-a-gpt-disk

When possible, always use GPT since MBR is borderline obsolete with several limitations compared to GPT.
Further reading: https://www.howtogeek.com/193669/whats-the-difference-between-gpt-and-mbr-when-partitioning-a-drive/

Hi - thanks for that. I have just had a look. When I right click on the disc in the windows 10 screen, it offers me to transfer to MBR. Which makes me think it cannot already be MBR ? Also if I right click on properties and pick the volume tab it seems to suggest it is already GPT ? Here are the two screens :

https://imgur.com/a/VZyoOwc

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


SJ

 

[Aeacus]

Well, if your HDD is in GPT and to make one single partition, you 1st need to unallocate the current 2TB partition in Disk Management, so Win would show all 4TB as unallocated. Then, allocate the partition again and this time, use the entire size of the drive as a single partition.

 

[SimonJaye]

Well, if your HDD is in GPT and to make one single partition, you 1st need to unallocate the current 2TB partition in Disk Management, so Win would show all 4TB as unallocated. Then, allocate the partition again and this time, use the entire size of the drive as a single partition.

Hi - I've just about pressed all the buttons for options in the windows 10 disk management but nothing seems to offer the options you mention ?

SJ

 

[Aeacus]

Right click on the partition you want to delete, pop-up menu appears. Choose:"Delete volume...".

 

[fzabkar]

Your Icy Box enclosure has a 32-bit LBA limitation in its firmware. The drive will be truncated to reflect the capacity in excess of 2TiB.

This means that a 4TB drive will be reduced to …

• 4 TB - 2 TiB = 1.80 TB = 1.64 TiB

https://www.google.com/search?q=4TB+-+2TiB+in+TB

https://www.google.com/search?q=4TB+-+2TiB+in+TiB

 

[Aeacus]

Your Icy Box enclosure has a 32-bit LBA limitation in its firmware.

What's your source on that? Since IB-RD3620SU3 manual doesn't say any word about max 2TB limitation on it's firmware.

What manual does say (page 17, chapter 7) is:
"6. Under Windows Vista/7/8, users can enable GPT when initializing HDD with a total capacity of more than 2 TB."
manual: https://www.raidsonic.de/products/e...D3620SU3/pdf/E_IB-3620_Series_manual_v1.1.pdf

 

[fzabkar]

What's your source on that? Since IB-RD3620SU3 manual doesn't say any word about max 2TB limitation on it's firmware.

What manual does say (page 17, chapter 7) is:
"6. Under Windows Vista/7/8, users can enable GPT when initializing HDD with a total capacity of more than 2 TB."
manual: https://www.raidsonic.de/products/e...D3620SU3/pdf/E_IB-3620_Series_manual_v1.1.pdf

The manual is wrong, unless it is referring to updated firmware.

My source is the sector range reported to DMDE by the Icy Box enclosure:

• 0 to 3519069871

The actual size of a 4TB drive is 7814037168 sectors (according to IDEMA's formula).

https://www.google.com/search?q=97696368+++(1953504+x+(4000+–+50))+in+decimal

https://www.google.com/search?q=97696368+++(1953504+x+(enter_GB_here+–+50))+in+decimal

In hexadecimal this number becomes 0x1D1C0BEB0. This is a 33-bit number. If we discard the 33rd bit, then the number of sectors becomes 0xD1C0BEB0 ( = 3,519,069,872).

• 0xD1C0BEB0 x 512 bytes = 1.80176377 terabytes

https://www.google.com/search?q=0xD1C0BEB0+x+512+bytes+in+TB

https://www.bing.com/search?q=0xd1c0beb0+in+decimal

LBA-Count-for-Disk-Drives-Standard-IDEMA:
http://idema.org/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=1223

 

[fzabkar]

Let me explain it another way, by using a decimal analogy.

Let's assume we have a hypothetical enclosure with a capacity limitation corresponding to 4 decimal digits. This means that the maximum size is 9999.

If we install a HDD with an actual size of 1234, the enclosure will correctly report a size of 1234.

If, instead, we install a HDD with a size of 12345, the enclosure will discard the leading "1" and report a reduced size of 2345.

 

[Aeacus]

The manual is wrong, unless it is referring to updated firmware.

My source is the sector range reported to DMDE by the Icy Box enclosure:

• 0 to 3519069871

The actual size of a 4TB drive is 7814037168 sectors (according to IDEMA's formula).

https://www.google.com/search?q=97696368+++(1953504+x+(4000+–+50))+in+decimal

https://www.google.com/search?q=97696368+++(1953504+x+(enter_GB_here+–+50))+in+decimal

In hexadecimal this number becomes 0x1D1C0BEB0. This is a 33-bit number. If we discard the 33rd bit, then the number of sectors becomes 0xD1C0BEB0 ( = 3,519,069,872).

• 0xD1C0BEB0 x 512 bytes = 1.80176377 terabytes

https://www.google.com/search?q=0xD1C0BEB0+x+512+bytes+in+TB

https://www.bing.com/search?q=0xd1c0beb0+in+decimal

LBA-Count-for-Disk-Drives-Standard-IDEMA:
http://idema.org/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=1223

Well, your numbers are correct but what DMDE shows is: single drive with 2x partitions, 1st (upper) partition is allocated in 1.8 TB size while the other (lower) is unallocated, again in 1.8 TB in size.

OP did say that he messed up during drive format and partitioning, where he chose 2 TB instead of 4 TB, hence the two partitions on same drive:

Somehow I ended up making a mess of formatting the first disc in and I think I told it that it was 2TB not 4TB.

Given that both of OP's 4 TB drives are in the Icy Box, further proof of no firmware limitation is thanks to the Disk 3 seen in Disk Management. That drive has one single allocated partition of 3.7 TB in size. No limitation there.

Now, OP is looking to correct his error by seeking assistance in fixing it. I already said how to fix the partition issue and as long as OP doesn't reply back, we don't know if the issue is/was simple partition creation mix up or with the Icy Box firmware.

 

[fzabkar]

@Aeacus, with respect, you don't understand what DMDE is telling you. Those are not two 1.8TB partitions.

The first 1.8TB entry is indicating that the entire drive space is assigned to a GPT partitioning system. The second 1.8TB entry is the unallocated area available to the user for one or more volumes, after excluding the partition table array. The difference between the two entries is clear when you look at the sector ranges that they occupy. Specifically, the second 1.8TB entry is contained wholly within the first entry, ie they refer to the same space.

The user area starts at sector 34 and finishes at maxLBA - 33. The first 34 sectors (partition table array) are used by the GPT partitioning system. The sectors at the end of the drive are copies of those at the beginning.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
https://thestarman.pcministry.com/asm/mbr/GPT.htm

 

[SimonJaye]

Hi Guys

The above discussion is way above my head. What I can say is that using the prompt mentioned in one of the replies above by Aeacus to work on the 'Volume' heading/tab rather than 'Partition' heading/tab (thanks for that), I was able to then somehow sort this drive out to give me the 4TB using the basic functions in either Windows Disk Management or the DMDE software (I did this two weeks ago now and I cannot recall precisely what I did).

I cannot explain why this is the case, but I am definitely getting it coming up as 4TB in the IcyBox unit. That applies to the single disc I was referring to in my question and I also have another Icybox with two 4TB discs in Raid 1 - which also do come up as 4TB. The single disc in the Icy Box looks like this :

https://imgur.com/a/SHAoDJe

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


As will have been apparent from my first problem in a different thread, solved by fzabkar, where I had 2x2TB drives in an IcyBox and could not get access to any data (which I now can - thanks) I have found that Raid 1 is not the solution to my back up problems (or indeed anyone's !). So now I intend to split the Raid1 discs to produce a set of data on one disc and then I will use a proper backup system to periodically back up tp the other of the discs so that I have got two stand alone set of data.
I have had search for splitting Raid1 and seen ideas about going to the Raid Bios but despiute an attempt over the last week I have yet to work out how to do that so I am going to put up a new post about that.

Thank you both.

SJ

 

[Aeacus]

Nice to hear that you got your issue solved and it was simple partition creation mix up, like i thought it was.

 

[fzabkar]

The problem cannot have been resolved by anything you did in software. The problem must have been resolved at the IcyBox level in some way. I suspect that RAID-ed pairs in the IcyBox may be limited to 2TiB but single drives may not be.