First of all, I must tell that this is a very common problem and described with details at Support -> Knowledge base -> Hard Disk Cases -> Hard disk case: capacity is not correct page, or directly at
http://www.hdsentinel.com/hard_disk_cas ... orrect.php
This is caused by an incompatibility between the hard disk (which is over 2 TB, so all 3, 4, 5, 6, 8 etc... TB hard disks can be affected regardless of manufacturer, model) and the system. In most cases, the problem is related to
- hard disk controller (motherboard chipset) driver which may not correctly manage the high capacity hard disk
or
- the USB adapter / enclosure (if the hard disk connected on USB).
> HD Sentinel is throwing up the warning that this particular 4TB drive is not displaying it's correct size of 3.XX
> (or whatever the "true" size of a 4TB disk is), and instead is only showing 1.6XX, or something like that.
The 4 TB hard disk (which is actually 4.000.000.000.000 bytes) is really 3.725 GB. The difference is that in Windows (for example Disk Management and so) 1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes = 1 megabyte and so. To follow this, Hard Disk Sentinel also uses the 1024, not 1000.
But the problem is not this - but that your system can't address the complete capacity. When you'd try to copy more than 2.2 TB data on the hard disk, you'll surely lose all data as the sector address will overflow and starts counting from 0 again. This causes that the first sectors (partition table) and then the written MFT / directory / file system data will be overwritten.
> The thing is, disk manager DOES show the correct size,
No. Just for the PARTITION.
When Windows reads the partition table, it reads that the hard disk has a 4 TB partition which could be addressed.
But if you inspect in Disk Management more, you may notice that the physical hard disk size is only 1.6 TB, exactly as displayed in Hard Disk Sentinel.
> as does a properties check through Windows Explorer.
Yes. Exactly because it does not care about the physical drive size and addressable capacity, just the logical drive (partition) size.
> I'm not sure where HD Sentinel is getting this info.
Hard Disk Sentinel detects the REAL physical drive info and matches with the partition sizes.
Without the notification of Hard Disk Sentinel, all data will be surely lost from the hard disk if you copy more than 2.2 TB data on it.
> It has the basic Win7 files with no updates or other service packs. I assumed that basic disc drivers/controllers are loaded with Windows...?
Yes, it is possible that older drivers installed - which can cause this problem.
> Also just recently I had to reload all the media files on this disk when, while trying to add to the files,
> all of them became corrupted and unrecoverable.
Oh....
So you already encountered exactly this. Hard Disk Sentinel issues the warning for this, so I'm not really surprised.
> I suspected a bad drive,
No. This is absolutely not related to the hard disk itself.
> so I did a fresh reformat on a different computer, and HD Sentinel said that the drive is 100% healthy.
Yes of course. First of all, the hard disk has no health problems - that's why it is 100% health.
Also the other computer may have different drivers and there the complete capacity could be used. There you could create partition and format it without problems.
> On my media computer, though, there's this strange report on disk size, which I now suspect is the problem behind the sudden file corruption.
Yes, I'm afraid this is the problem.
> The OS reporting the correct disk size is throwing me off.
No. The OS just reports the partition size - shows what you "want" to see, but does not indicate problems with addressing.
So I can repeat that
Without the notification of Hard Disk Sentinel, all data will be surely lost from the hard disk if you copy more than 2.2 TB data on it.
as nothing else reports such problem which acts like a time-bomb: when you fill up the hard disk, you surely lost all data.
The Support -> Driver Zone (
http://www.hdsentinel.com/driverzone.php ) page designed to offer best, correctly working drivers (which may not be the latest!) for various controllers, motherboard chipsets. Please check your current controller and driver version / date (displayed on the Information page in Hard Disk Sentinel) and install the best, recommend one to improve the situation.
If you could send a developer-report with Report menu -> Send test report to developer option, I can check and advise about the best driver to be used to prevent data loss.
