[SOLVED] 3TB Hard Drive Setup issues...

[jackerbes]

I have a 3TB hard drive that was purchased used on eBay. It came to me as an 2974.52 GB "RAW" primary partition.

I wanted to change that to a ext4 partition and also write zeros to all sectors so as to find out the condition of the drive.

After I deleted the "RAW" partition the drive showed only 746.52 GB of available space in disks and gparted and I have been unable to get it back to it's 3TB size.

I think the issue is that I need to make the disk use a GPT partition to get the full space. But I can't seem to get gparted or disks or even the W7 Disk Managment app to give me the full space from the disk.

When I right clicked on the drive in W7 it had an option to "Convert to GPT" and I chose to do that but it did not change the size of the disk. Now the W7 option is to change it back to MBR...

I have the drive in an external USB drive case and can work on it with either Linux (my primary software) or W7 Home Premium (seldom used and fraught with ignorance on my part).

I've been trying to use gparted and disks to get this back on track but am really floundering around...

Any hints or links are appreciated.

Jack

[gm10]

post output of

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sudo lshw -c disk 
sudo fdisk -l 

and ideally a screenshot of what you're seeing in gparted.

[jackerbes]

Here you go:

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 $ sudo lshw -c disk
  *-disk                  
       description: SCSI Disk
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@6:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sdb
       size: 746GiB (801GB)
       capabilities: gpt-1.00 partitioned partitioned:gpt
       configuration: guid=7a7ead28-8a83-4c67-bce4-a0b28e78d75e logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=512
  *-disk
       description: ATA Disk
       product: HGST HTS721010A9
       physical id: 0.0.0
       bus info: scsi@0:0.0.0
       logical name: /dev/sda
       version: A3W0
       serial: JR10004M3K190F
       size: 931GiB (1TB)
       capabilities: partitioned partitioned:dos
       configuration: ansiversion=5 logicalsectorsize=512 sectorsize=4096 signature=92a4fba9
  *-cdrom ..<snip>...

fdisk -l
Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x92a4fba9

Device     Boot      Start        End    Sectors   Size Id Type
/dev/sda1  *          2048   58595797   58593750    28G 83 Linux
/dev/sda2         58597376 1894534875 1835937500 875.5G 83 Linux
/dev/sda3       1894535168 1953525167   58990000  28.1G 82 Linux swap / Solaris

Disk /dev/sdb: 746.5 GiB, 801569726464 bytes, 1565565872 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: gpt
Disk identifier: 7A7EAD28-8A83-4C67-BCE4-A0B28E78D75E

Device     Start        End    Sectors   Size Type
/dev/sdb1   2048 1565565838 1565563791 746.5G Linux root (x86-64)

Thanks for the reply...

[jackerbes]

gparted image:

[gm10]

Thanks. Two possibilities I see at this point, either your external HDD case's firmware cannot address drives of this size (limited to 32bit addressing), or the NSA hijacked your device (just kidding, but same tech: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Host_protected_area). To say which one I'll need two more things, first output from

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sudo hdparm -N /dev/sdb

to check for HPA settings, and if HPA is disabled then

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apt install sg3

and tell me output of

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sudo sg_readcap -l /dev/sdb

[WharfRat]

jackerbes,

If you don't have smartmontools installed, install it sudo apt-get install smartmontools then run and paste the results of sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdb

[jackerbes]

@WharfRat,

@gm10,

Thanks for the replies, I won't be able to repond to those for a couple of hours as I'm away from the drive for a while. But I'll do those both as soon as I can...

Jack

[jackerbes]

g10 wrote:

"..to say which one I'll need two more things, first output from sudo hdparm -N /dev/sdb..."

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sudo hdparm -N /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
SG_IO: bad/missing sense data, sb[]:  70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
 max sectors   = 0/1, HPA is enabled

"..to check for HPA settings, and if HPA is disabled then..."

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apt install sg3
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
E: Unable to locate package sg3

Because of that error I installed the sg-utils and sg-utils-udev packages from the Synaptic Package manager and then did the following

"..and tell me output of sudo sg_readcap -l /dev/sdb..."

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sudo sg_readcap -l /dev/sdb
READ CAPACITY (16) failed: Illegal request, invalid opcode

That last looks like another error but I did it twice carefully and got the same thing both times.

Jack

[jackerbes]

WharfRat wrote:

"If you don't have smartmontools installed, install it sudo apt-get install smartmontools then run and paste the results of sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdb"

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$ sudo smartctl -i /dev/sdb
[sudo] password for jack:         
smartctl 6.5 2016-01-24 r4214 [x86_64-linux-4.13.0-31-generic] (local build)
Copyright (C) 2002-16, Bruce Allen, Christian Franke, www.smartmontools.org

=== START OF INFORMATION SECTION ===
Model Family:     Hitachi Ultrastar 7K3000
Device Model:     Hitachi HUA723030ALA640
Serial Number:    MK0373YHJ7URDC
LU WWN Device Id: 5 000cca 225dfbe2a
Firmware Version: MKAOA800
User Capacity:    3,000,592,982,016 bytes [3.00 TB]
Sector Size:      512 bytes logical/physical
Rotation Rate:    7200 rpm
Form Factor:      3.5 inches
Device is:        In smartctl database [for details use: -P show]
ATA Version is:   ATA8-ACS T13/1699-D revision 4
SATA Version is:  SATA 2.6, 6.0 Gb/s (current: 1.5 Gb/s)
Local Time is:    Sat Jul 28 14:20:20 2018 EDT
SMART support is: Available - device has SMART capability.
SMART support is: Enabled

Jack

[gm10]

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sudo sg_readcap -l /dev/sdb
READ CAPACITY (16) failed: Illegal request, invalid opcode

That last looks like another error but I did it twice carefully and got the same thing both times.

You did nothing wrong. I was expecting it to fail but not necessarily with that particular error message, please try again like this please just to cross-check, this one should not produce an error:

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sudo sg_readcap /dev/sdb

If it doesn't, then the answer should be that your external HDD case doesn't support drives of this size - unless you're telling me that you have successfully used drives larger than 2 TB in that case. You need a case that supports 64bit addressing to be able to handle your 3 TB disk. Also check your BIOS/UEFI options though, there may be some that deal with USB mass storage that can affect this.

WharfRat may have additional insight.

[WharfRat]

If it is plugged in to some sort of dock then that could be the problem because it is a 3TB drive as reported by smartctl.

[gm10]

By the way, was just thinking, another reason would be if you were running a non-standard kernel that's not compiled with the CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION option (which would be weird but thought I'd mention it). All regular Ubuntu kernels should have this, but if you want to check:

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grep CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION /boot/config-$(uname -r)

[jackerbes]

I love these forums! Even when I come here and find out that I have shot myself in the foot again!

I looks like my problem was because I was using a USB 2.0 external SATA drive case on a laptop when I should have put the drive on the SATA bus on my ASUS Z97 desktop machine down in the basement...

I have two of these drives and both were doing the same thing. When I put one of them on the SATA bus on the Z97 mobo it really changed things.

When I ran gparted it told me there was an error on the partitioning table and I let it fix that. And now I have a 2.73 GB drive!

180728_sdc_01.jpg

So it looks like my problem was that I needed to not use an external USB drive case on a laptop to look at my new 3TB drives...

For the record the answer to g10's EFI question was yes:

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$ grep CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION /boot/config-$(uname -r)
CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION=y

And if any of you you want me to run any of the commands I have already run again, please just say so. Otherwise I will mark this as solved and say many thanks to all!

Jack

[gm10]

So it looks like my problem was that I needed to not use an external USB drive case on a laptop to look at my new 3TB drives...

That's what I told you. But a compatible USB case will also work. But if you're good with having the drive in the desktop instead, even better (USB2 is no fun for moving lots of data). Enjoy and yes, please mark as solved.

[jackerbes]

Right you were of course.

I had used a number of external USB drives to make backups and move images around or prep drives for installs in a computer. But the 2TB and up changed things a lot...

I love the HGST drives, so quiet and reliable. These two are about four years old and used but at $45 or so each (picked off from eBay with a list minute snipe bid) I decided to give one of them a try. And the seller send me a replacement when the size issues started and I asked about it. So now I'll pay him for the other drive too and run one in the desktop and use the other for archives and backups...

Thanks again to all!

Jack