I have a 1TB drive (details below) that I tried to reformat with a guid partion table. To reformat the drive I naively copied the first few sectors from another drive (2Tb) drive formatted with a guid partition table drive to the 1Tb drive. The idea was that I would then delete partitions and recreate new ones. This was a disaster! I’m now looking to restore the 1Tb drive to working condition, however, all attempts seem to fail because the os reads the drive as larger than it actually is. Can someone suggest how the drive can be restored? Is the solution as simple as rewriting the original mbr to the drive? (Can anyone supply the original, or useable, mdr that I can write to the drive?
How does the drive determine its size? From my actions with this drive it appears that the information is stored in the first sectors of the drive although I do not know where in the mbr this is stored.
Details of the drive:
1.0TB Sata Drive
32MB Cache
Model: WD10EADS-22M2B0
LBA: 1953525168
regards,
eds
Hello,
Try writing zeroes to the drive with the WD DLG tool. This should return the drive to his original state, the software is available for download at the Western Digital website.
Neohelp:
Thanks for the suggestion. I looked at the WD DLG Tool and discovered that your suggestion isn’t as simple as it sounds! My main problem is the tool is windows based or dos based (really!) and I don’t have windows pcs (I have mac products). I’m surprised that WD doesn’t provide a bootable CD image with the tools to make is easier for its customers to correct issues with their products.
Before I go through the trouble of either getting access to a windows machine or a dos machine I’d like to better understand what the tool is going to do. From your comment, I infer that ‘writing zeroes to the drive’ wipes the drive by writing zeroes to each sector followed by rewriting the mbr. I this your understanding? Is there any way of avoiding the ‘write zeors’ part and skip directly to writing the mbr?
regards,
eds
No, unfortunately not with the DLG. However if you search online you will find several tools to repair the MBR.
Were it me - I’d get access to a Windows machine, stick it in, and write 0’s.
The exact tool name is: Datal Lifeguard Diagnostic
There’s an option to write only the 1st and last million sectors.
That makes it go real quick.
-W
