Format HDD with IBM Hidden Partition
* * Chas
and an IBM Hidden Partition.
I just want to clean the whole drive and remove all partitions.
I've RTFM and spent several hours on Google and only found complicated
answers about reinstalling or warnings of dire consequences, no How To
Without Any Problems advice.
TIA
--
Chas. ver...@aol.spamski.com (Drop spamski to E-mail me)
Nicholas Andrade
Download any live Linux distro with cfdisk (eg. the minimal install iso
for gentoo located here:
ftp://linux.cs.lewisu.edu/gentoo/releases/x86/2005.0/installcd/). Burn
the iso to a cd and reboot with the cd inserted. Follow the
instructions on screen to get to a command prompt. Type cfdisk, this
will allow you to delete/create any partitions you want. cfdisk has a
nice ncurses based GUI and is very intuitive, it's also free and not
crippled like MS's implementation of fdisk (MS's version only allows
FAT32 partions up to 32GB, etc.).
Bobby
format that.
"Nicholas Andrade" <SDNi...@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:%u4me.2722$rY6...@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
* * Chas
"Bobby" <sapp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:Wq6dnYyIgPE...@comcast.com...
> Do an FDISK, wipe out all partitions, then create a single partition
and
> format that.
Thanks for the suggestion but no, Fdisk isn't removing the IBM hidden
partition.
I tried to make a dual boot system, Win98SE/XP on a new blank Toshiba
40g HDD. I installed XP from a set of IBM X31 Recovery CDs.
After that was all configured, I created an 8g FAT32 partition and
installed Win98SE using System Commander. Both partitions were hidden
from each other and both ran OK.
I had problems with X31 drivers for Win98SE and gave up on the
project. Now I'm trying to wipe the HDD and use it in another system.
When I ran Fdisk it showed 3 NTFS partitions which I deleted:
1 53 MB - I'm guessing that this was a hidden partition.
2 8000 MB - Win98SE ?? some how got converted to NTFS ???
3 18952 MB - XP Partition
This shows as 35075 MB (or 36779 MB depending on how you're measuring
MBs)
Where is the rest of the space?
I had a similar problem with a SCSI HDD and had to do a low level
format to recover all the space.
Chas.
DeeBat
you deleted all the partitions? Is this the 35075 MB or 36779 MB you
reported in your post?
One possibility is that the IBM's Hidden Partition was created with
Fdisk from OS2 or Unix or Linux. It's possible that Microsoft's Fdisk
cannot change a partition created thus.
Are you sure that Toshiba's 40 MB rating is a 'formatted' rating, and
not an 'unformatted' rating, which would result in a formatted rating
of approximately 20% less?
Could you possibly have bad sectors on your hard disk?
Below is a link to hard disk reference guide:
http://www.storagereview.com/guide2000/ref/hdd/bios/index.html
* * Chas
"Nicholas Andrade" <SDNi...@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:%u4me.2722$rY6...@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
>
> > Could some kind soul tell me an easy way to format an X31 HDD with
XP
> > and an IBM Hidden Partition.
> >
> > I just want to clean the whole drive and remove all partitions.
> >
> > I've RTFM and spent several hours on Google and only found
complicated
> > answers about reinstalling or warnings of dire consequences, no
How To
> > Without Any Problems advice.
> > Chas. ver...@aol.spamski.com (Drop spamski to E-mail me)
> Download any live Linux distro with cfdisk (eg. the minimal install
iso
> for gentoo located here:
> ftp://linux.cs.lewisu.edu/gentoo/releases/x86/2005.0/installcd/).
Burn
> the iso to a cd and reboot with the cd inserted. Follow the
> instructions on screen to get to a command prompt. Type cfdisk,
this
> will allow you to delete/create any partitions you want. cfdisk has
a
> nice ncurses based GUI and is very intuitive, it's also free and not
> crippled like MS's implementation of fdisk (MS's version only allows
> FAT32 partions up to 32GB, etc.).
Thanks,
I D/L Gentoo Minimal Install LiveCD, burned the ISO to CD and ran
CFDISK. It found 3k MB of "free space" (which was probably the IBM
Hidden Partition) in addition to the 35076 MB reported by MS Fdisk.
I deleted the 35076 MB partition that I created earlier with MS Fdisk
and CFDISK reported the full 40g available. One thing that I didn't do
the first time through was "write" the changes to disk. I ran
Gentoo/CFDISK again and everything's great.
I created the CD with Nero. The first try was with a CD-RW disk. It
wouldn't finish booting into Gentoo so I reburned the ISO image on a
regular CDR and it worked fine.
I wish that I had this before. I've been toying with multi-boot
systems for about 10 years using Partition Magic and/or System
Commander. Occasionally a HDD would get hosed or I would forget that I
had a modified boot record on a spare drive and ran Fdisk on it which
would create a mess.....
Also, the FTP link you gave must have been down. I went to Gentoo's
web site and D/L from Purdue University's FTP site. I had a hard time
finding the .ISO file in a number of the FTP sites listed by Gentoo.
Chas.
EM
When setting up a dual-boot system with NT/non-NT OS's, the non-NT OS
(Win98 in this case) must *ALWAYS* be installed first, and it *MUST* be
installed in your primary ("C") partition (Win98/Me cannot boot from an
extended partition). And if you want avoid additional hassles, I
strongly suggest you forego using NTFS for XP.
I've set up two Win98/Win2k systems already and have not had any problems.
Nicholas Andrade
Yep, I did the same thing (forgot to write) the first time I ran cfdisk.
> I created the CD with Nero. The first try was with a CD-RW disk. It
> wouldn't finish booting into Gentoo so I reburned the ISO image on a
> regular CDR and it worked fine.
>
That's interesting, are you able to read the CD-RW in Windows? I've
used rewritables for Live distros before (in fact, newer versions of
Knoppix let you use multisession boot discs to save data).
>
> I wish that I had this before. I've been toying with multi-boot
> systems for about 10 years using Partition Magic and/or System
> Commander. Occasionally a HDD would get hosed or I would forget that I
> had a modified boot record on a spare drive and ran Fdisk on it which
> would create a mess.....
>
> Also, the FTP link you gave must have been down. I went to Gentoo's
> web site and D/L from Purdue University's FTP site. I had a hard time
> finding the .ISO file in a number of the FTP sites listed by Gentoo.
>
> Chas.
>
Sorry about the dead FTP; it worked when I posted the link (perhaps it
reached its maximum connection limit for the day). I'm surprised you
had trouble finding the appropriate iso; the directory tree ought to
have been the same on all the FTP sites. On a side note, if you got a
spare drive, I hope you consider giving Gentoo (or at least Linux) a go
some time (however if this is your first Linux experience, Gentoo is
probably not a good distro to start with). At the very least, I hope
you condsider trying a full live distro like Knoppix; you'll probably
find other tools that you'll like.
* * Chas
"EM" <1@1.1> wrote in message
news:y9ume.38988$Ph4.8...@ursa-nb00s0.nbnet.nb.ca...
> Yep, I think I see where you screwed up.
>
> When setting up a dual-boot system with NT/non-NT OS's, the non-NT
OS
> (Win98 in this case) must *ALWAYS* be installed first, and it *MUST*
be
> installed in your primary ("C") partition (Win98/Me cannot boot from
an
> extended partition). And if you want avoid additional hassles, I
> strongly suggest you forego using NTFS for XP.
>
> I've set up two Win98/Win2k systems already and have not had any
problems.
>
Normally I've installed Win98E, NT4 and then Win2k (I have 3 NT4 SP6
boxes that I haven't used in months). This was my first misadventure
with XP.
I bought a new IBM X31 last fall with XP installed (which I don't care
for). I picked up a new Toshiba 40G 7200 RPM HDD to play around with.
The only "legal" copy of XP that I had was on the IBM X31 Recovery
Disks and I wanted to see how well they worked so I installed XP
first.
It took about 3 hours to run and they installed XP SP2 and converted
the HDD to NTFS. After XP was configured, I installed Partition Magic
6.0 and created an 8g FAT32 primary partition for Win98SE and hid the
XP NTFS partition.
The Win98SE installation went smoothly. The system dual booted fine
but I had a lot of problems with the drivers. Finally I abandoned the
project.
Now I have this Toshiba 40g drive that I want to use for something
else and I can only get it to MS Fdisk to 35076 MB.
Linux CFDISK shows a 36779 MB primary partition with 3228 MB of free
space. I can use CFDISK to create a 40007 MB FAT 32 partition with no
free space.
When I go back into any MS software it shows a 35076 MB primary
partition ???
I cloned a Ghost image onto the drive because it will usually clean up
partition problems by overwriting everything. Still no joy.
I've never had more than about 12g on any laptop HDD. I'm going to use
the IBM XP SP2 Recovery CDs to do a clean installation on a Hitachi
60G 7200 RPM HDD. I'd like to eliminate the IBM hidden partition that
will be created because for my requirements it's a clumsy, complicated
solution to recover from a meltdown. I make frequent Ghost images with
a SCSI DAT Tape Drive and occasionally DVDs.
* * Chas
> * * Chas wrote:
>
> > "Nicholas Andrade" <SDNi...@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
> > news:%u4me.2722$rY6...@newssvr13.news.prodigy.com...
> >
I've been checking out Linux off and on for a number of years: Red Hat
5, 8 & 9, Corel, Suse 6 & 9, Mandrake 9 and others, plus my company
runs on AIX Unix.
I've been thinking about trying Xandros, Lycoris and Lindows
(Linspire). My biggest beefs with Linux is the difficulty in
installing/updating software - finding all of the dependencies and so
on, and configuring the stuff - recompiling the kernel to run faster
on a particular PC and so on.
SETUP.EXE, Doh!
Several years ago, I spent the summer recuperating and had a lot of
time on my hands. I put together a dual Pentium Pro box to use as a
Linux internet server. I went back to work before I ever finished the
project - I'd also given up on Linux and switched the project to NT4
SP6.
The Linux world is still too controlled by the anti-GUI command
liners! I'd love to have an alternative to Mr. Bill but any time I
have to spend 3-4 hours searching the internet trying to find out how
to make a minor tweak to the OS and not coming up with an easy answer,
then to me, it's not ready for prime time.
I still use Win98SE as my primary OS because I can fix just about any
problem in a few minutes. It's a lot easier to troubleshoot than the
NT based OSs.
Chas.
Jerry Bloomfield
wrote:
>Now I have this Toshiba 40g drive that I want to use for something
>else and I can only get it to MS Fdisk to 35076 MB.
With the newer IBM systems, you need to change the BIOS to tell it to
"disable" the IBM PreDesktop Area. Once you do that, it will take
that 3.xGB of space used by the "HPA" and fully give it back to you.
I had a 7K60 drive that came in my ThinkPad and when I removed it it
still reported as smaller, even in a Dell notebook. I had to put it
back into the ThinkPad and change the BIOS setting to recover that
space. I read somewhere that the ThinkPad BIOS will actually
over-write the disk geometry on the disk itself to make it think that
it is really smaller giving themselves that space which is "safe" from
accidental damage by the users.
* * Chas
"Jerry Bloomfield" <jblo...@SheltieLovers.net> wrote in message
news:ancm91p0v11rfjq29...@4ax.com...
Hmmm, I originally set up the drive in an X31 which probably has that
feature in the BIOS. I've been trying to get it back to full size in
both the X31 and a T20. I'm assuming that the partition table has been
modified because no matter what I've done, as soon as any MS program -
DOS/Windows etc. it shows 35076 MB.
Chas.
Nicholas Andrade
fact setting up and updating software on most linux distros is easier
and faster than in Windows. There are programs called package managers
that do all the work for you. You point them to a repository and they
find all the dependencies, check for conflicts, install what's needed,
and remove/update what's obsolete. The first major package manager was
known as apt-get (originally used in Debian based distros), now almost
every distro has an equivalent (or a port of apt). Most even have a GUI
for the package manager.
Debian (and it's derivatives, eg. Ubuntu): apt-get (synaptic is the GUI)
To install a package: apt-get install <package_name>
To update a package: apt-get update <package_name>
To update every package on your computer: apt-get update
To do a major disto upgrade: apt-get upgrade
To uninstall: apt-get remove <package_name>
Fedora (Red Hat) uses up2date (has it's own GUI) or yum (yumi), Mandriva
(Mandrake) uses urpmi (not sure what the GUI is called), Gentoo - which
compiles everything from source - uses portage(emerge for consol &
portagemaster for GUI).
I agree that Linux may seem anti-GUI, but to be fair there are many
things that can be done faster from a console than a GUI (and likewise
the reverse is true as well).
Jon Solberg
> * * Chas wrote:
>
> Fedora (Red Hat) uses up2date (has it's own GUI) or yum (yumi), Mandriva
> (Mandrake) uses urpmi (not sure what the GUI is called),
Rpmdrake is the name of MDK's graphical installer.
--
Jon Solberg (remove "nospam" from email address).
* * Chas
"Nicholas Andrade" <sdni...@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:wtIme.323$IE7...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
I wasn't intending to be negative (only frustrated over the command
line geeks control of the Linux movement).
To be fair, it's been almost 2 years since I played around with Linux
and it looks like a lot has changed. I spent enough time banging on
"Old Iron" (360's 390's DEC PDP's and so on) so for me command line is
somewhat akin to cuneiform.
Too many years of eye strain from looking at 12" black & white, black
& green or black and orange screens!
I don't type - loss of sensitivity in my fingers, carpal tunnel and so
on plus I make lots of mistakes "typing". That's why GUI has been a
godsend for me.
In the bad old days, computing was based on mathematical logic. The
advent of object oriented computing changed things to more of a
linguistic logic system.
There are plenty of caves where command line geeks (said in the worst
sense of the word) can go wank and be modern day hermits. Heck I'll
even give them copies of OS/2 the ultimate DOS geek's toy! ;-)
Last time out I had 3 different 9x distros running on separate boxes.
I was evaluating some business management software for a client. It
took me several days before I gave up trying to update Mozilla on
those critters.
Now that I've hopefully offended a lot of "dark agers"...... BRING
BACK PARCHMENT MANUSCRIPTS! ... We still have lots of caves!
Actually I was checking out DistroWatch.com this morning. I've been
thinking about setting up a Linux box just for internet and Email.
Xandros, Linspire and Lycoris all look interesting.
Chas.
* * Chas
"Jerry Bloomfield" <jblo...@SheltieLovers.net> wrote in message
news:ancm91p0v11rfjq29...@4ax.com...
<dna...@aol.spam.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Now I have this Toshiba 40g drive that I want to use for something
> >else and I can only get it to MS Fdisk to 35076 MB.
>
> With the newer IBM systems, you need to change the BIOS to tell it
to
> that 3.xGB of space used by the "HPA" and fully give it back to
you.
> I had a 7K60 drive that came in my ThinkPad and when I removed it it
> still reported as smaller, even in a Dell notebook. I had to put
it
> back into the ThinkPad and change the BIOS setting to recover that
> space. I read somewhere that the ThinkPad BIOS will actually
> over-write the disk geometry on the disk itself to make it think
that
> it is really smaller giving themselves that space which is "safe"
from
> accidental damage by the users.
Thanks, makes sense to me, protect us from ourselves! ;-)
The drive was originally set up on an X31 and I used my IBM Recovery
disks to install WinXP.
I've been all through the BIOS on my X31 and I can find no reference
to disable the IBM PreDesktop Area which I assume was blown away on
the drive after numerous attempts with MS FDISK and Linux CFDISK.
Interesting, when I created a FAT32 LBA partition with CFDISK it
showed 40007 MB (38154 MB in dog years). MS Fdisk would then show it
as a 38154 MB partition on a 35076 MB drive indicating that the
partition table was still hosed - I would presume.
These changes were done on a T20 without any PreDesktop crap so the
BIOS shouldn't have been creating any problems.
Chas.
dg1261
"* * Chas" wrote:
> > > Now I have this Toshiba 40g drive that I want to use for
> > > something else and I can only get it to MS Fdisk to 35076 MB.
> "Jerry Bloomfield" wrote:
> > With the newer IBM systems, you need to change the BIOS
> > to tell it to "disable" the IBM PreDesktop Area. Once you do
> > that, it will take that 3.xGB of space used by the "HPA" and
> > fully give it back to you. I had a 7K60 drive that came in my
> > ThinkPad and when I removed it it still reported as smaller,
> > even in a Dell notebook. I had to put it back into the ThinkPad
> > and change the BIOS setting to recover that space. I read
> > somewhere that the ThinkPad BIOS will actually over-write
> > the disk geometry on the disk itself to make it think that
> > it is really smaller ...
"* * Chas" wrote:
> I've been all through the BIOS on my X31 and I can find no
> reference to disable the IBM PreDesktop Area ...
Chas, as Jerry said, you've got to expose the HPA. Only recent IBM
notebooks are HPA-aware, and it's set in the bios under [Security], [IBM
Predesktop Area]. The options are Secure, Normal, or Disabled. You need to
set it to Disabled to expose the HPA. Alternatively, you can use Hitachi's
"Feature Tool", which you can download from www.hgst.com. The Feature Tool
will allow you to expose the HPA if you have a non-IBM laptop or IBM bios
that is not HPA-aware.
If you're interested, here's an excerpt from an investigation I did awhile
back into the HPA:
The HPA (Hidden Protected Area) is part of the regular HDD space that's been
shielded by the controller on the HDD itself. Basically, the controller
hides some of the disk cylinders from the outside world.
When any computer boots, the bios queries the HDD controller to get the size
and parameters of the HDD. But the bios is going to believe whatever the
disk controller tells it, so what if the controller returns fake numbers?
If we can manipulate some registers in the controller, we can make the
controller pretend that it has fewer cylinders than it really has, and the
outside world won't know the difference.
There is a utility called the "Feature Tool" available from Hitachi
(www.hgst.com) that does just that. Set the controller to report fewer than
the maximum actual cylinders, and the extra cylinders are untouchable by
fdisk, diskpart, BootIt-NG, Partition Magic, et al -- they won't even know
the HPA is there. I believe the Feature Tool writes to flash memory on the
HDD's onboard disk controller, changing the number of max cylinders the
controller reports to the computer's bios during bootup. IBM has wrapped
these same controller calls into the bios of recent notebooks to automate
setting aside those extra cylinders for its own Predesktop Area.
It's worth noting that the hidden part of the disk can be whatever size you
decide to make it, depending on how many cylinders you decide to hide. The
Feature Tool allows you to set the maximum capacity of the HDD to be any
user-designated amount (up to the real maximum of the hardware, of course).
If you set a 40GB HDD to be 35GB, then your computer, and every other
utility that looks at that HDD, will believe that HDD is really a 35GB disk.
There is no hidden part of the HDD to be recovered or revealed by fdisk,
PartitionMagic, or similar third-party utilities because they simply do not
believe the rest of the disk exists.
When you use the Feature Tool to reduce the max capacity of the HDD, it
"hides from the back". For example, if the HDD really has 2100 cylinders
and you reduce it to report itself as having 1800 cylinders, the hidden
cylinders are numbers 1801-2100. You can use the Feature Tool to hide and
unhide those 300 cylinders, and the data stored in those sectors is
untouched. There is a white paper available from IBM that describes the
HPA, but IMHO it obfuscates the issue by making it look like the HPA is at
the *beginning* of the disk, when in fact it is not. The HPA expands
forward from the back of the disk, so the normal partitions you create and
use in the visible area are unaffected by manipulations with the HPA.
The bios in recent IBM notebooks includes HPA functionality which IBM uses
for its Predesktop Area (PDA). The PDA is used for several functions, such
as diagnostic utilities, an OS recovery image, and (if enabled) IBM's "Rapid
Restore" backup scheme.
* * Chas
"dg1261" <dgREMOVE...@cs.com> wrote in message
news:ILVme.529$IE7...@newssvr21.news.prodigy.com...
Thanks for all the great info. The only problem is that I have a
Toshiba drive and I haven't found any utilities for it. I was thinking
that the problem is in the HDD's partition table.
It's odd that Linux CFDISK can see the whole drive and use it but any
MS based OS can only see the munged size. When I create a 40007 MB
FAT32 LBA partition with Linux CFDISK, MS Fdisk, Partition Magic and
other MS based software report a 38GB FAT32 partition on a 35GB drive.
This happens on both a T20 and an X31 so it's not a BIOS issue.
At this point, it's become academic because I copied a Ghost image to
it and have in another laptop where it seems to be working fine... as
a 35GB HDD. It's OK because I've never had more than 12GB on any
laptop.
For future reference and the benefit of others, any more information
would be appreciated.
Chas.
dg1261
"* * Chas" wrote:
> Thanks for all the great info. The only problem is that I have
> a Toshiba drive and I haven't found any utilities for it. I was
> thinking that the problem is in the HDD's partition table.
Use Hitachi's Feature Tool (www.hgst.com). I've used in on Hitachi, IBM,
Fujitsu, and Toshiba drives.
* * Chas
Hey,
Thanks for the tip. It worked! I had an old copy of IBM's Drive
Feature Tool. It reported 36.7GB on a 40GB HDD. Changed the size and
used Partition Magic to resize the drive. Everything's great.
Chas.