Vista Hard Drive Unusual Problem

energizerabby · Jan 26, 2010

Hello, this is my first post here, and the first time I haven't been able to figure out something with the Vista Home Premium 64 bit operating system.

My other non-booting hard disk (IDE) of 300 gb recently died, so I got a SATA Segate Barracuda 1.5TB disk. It is working fine. I formatted it without problems. Under the properties box it shows Capacity: 1.36TB, and the drive is indexed for faster searching. As far as I know too, there is nothing set up on it for System Restore.

However, I am now running into a very strange problem copying files to this disk. Even with 1.36TB on it, I can only copy up to 131 gb of data to it. After that Vista refuses to copy anything. I am very suspicious about the 131 gb limit that I am finding, that must be significant. I have also tried to search in the BIOS choices, but couldn't find anything there. It is an ASUS M4A79 Deluxe motherboard, with 5 SATA ports, which I am using #1, #2, #3, and #5, if that matters. I thought about switching the SATA cable for the Seagate drive from #5 to #4, but since Vista sees it as 1.36TB it seems that there wouldn't be any difference.

Thank you for the help.

Dwarf · Jan 26, 2010

Hi energizerabby and welcome to Vista Forums :party:

Try splitting the data files at convenient points and don't exceed the size limit that you have found (131GB) per copy batch. Sorry that I can't think of anything else as I don't have that much data to try, but I'm sure that someone else has probably come across this before.

energizerabby · Jan 26, 2010

Thank you for your help. I see I need to clarify one more point though.

I have already put 130gb on the drive. I try to copy even a 2gb file and it says there is not enough space on the drive. Even though the properties box says there is 1.23TB free.

Dwarf · Jan 26, 2010

Does it make any difference if you reboot and then try to copy more data to the drive?

energizerabby · Jan 26, 2010

There is no difference after rebooting. Also, I have run the chkdsk command and it shows the proper amount of disk space there too.

Dwarf · Jan 26, 2010

Do you have SP1 and SP2 installed?

energizerabby · Jan 26, 2010

It says that it is SP1.

energizerabby · Jan 27, 2010

There is an update, and I think the problem is solved. But I don't know how to redo the thread title to show that.

I found the vssadmin command, run from a command prompt and with administrator option on. I copied from John Barnett's Windows Vista Support: Decrease Storage Space Allocated To System Restore where it showed the command #5 for "Reducing the Allocated Space." (I used the letter "e" instead of "c" because it was my E: disk.)

And, now after a bit more research after doing the vssadmin command, I guess it is possible to turn off Vista's System Restore on an individual drive. So maybe that is what I should have done.

I'm not really sure why this worked, or if this is what really worked. I had used the vssadmin command to list the shadowstorage and didn't really see anything listed for the E: disk. But now that it has been reset to 2GB maximum on the 1.36TB disk it has accepted more copies past the 131GB limit it was stuck at yesterday. And, after looking at the System Restore settings again, it still looks like System Restore is already disabled on Disk E:, so why this vssadmin command should have any effect I can't explain.

One thing I'm wondering though is why can't Vista easily set up System Restore parameters like XP could?

And thank you Dwarf for your help with this.

energizerabby · Jan 27, 2010

OK, here is another update. The problem isn't solved.

But what is incredibly strange is how Vista x64 is acting. When I try to copy something to the disk, Vista x64 stops and gives the message, "Copy Item There is not enough space on Seagate Disk E: 254 MB is needed to copy this item. Delete or move files so you have enough space." Then, if I just check the little box "Do this for all items" it has no problem copying the 254 MB to the disk. Also, I have never gotten a low disk space warning for Disk E: either.

energizerabby · Jan 28, 2010

OK, I'm hoping that somebody is interested in this, it has become a major problem.

As an update, I thought I was able to continue copying files if I just checked the little box to do this for all files, which I guess was to let Vista do Disk Cleanup. However, what is really neat is that now I've checked on some files, and they are there, on the disk, but 0 bytes. So it appears that they've been copied, but in fact they haven't.

I really wish this problem could be solved. I can't believe I'm the only one this has ever happend to with Vista. Is it possible for Vista to see the full 1.36TB of the disk if the BIOS is only seeing 130GB?

energizerabby · Jan 29, 2010

As an update, although it doesn't appear anybody here except Dwarf was interested in helping, for anyone who might run into these extremely unusual circumstances, I believe I have figured out what happened.

I wondered if being in SATA #5 instead of SATA #4 slot had anything to do with it, but discounted that theory because Vista 64 still saw the entire drive. However, I think this really was the cause of the problem.

Because I wasn't using the most up to date BIOS for the Asus M4A79 Deluxe motherboard, SATA #5 was not set to the proper configuration. The motherboard has SATA #1 - #4, and #5 is somehow separated from them. In the new BIOS you must set SATA #5 and eSATA separately from SATA #1 - #4.

So essentially, it was because I wasn't using the most up to date BIOS.

Dwarf · Jan 29, 2010

Can you confirm this by copying a large amount of data, like you were trying to do originally. If you are successful, and report back as so, I'll mark the thread as solved.

energizerabby · Jan 31, 2010

Here is another update, with incredibly strange behavior with Vista 64.

It did start copying fine again, past 137GB. Even up to 142GB. Then it started again saying there wasn't enough space on the disk to copy. I then shut the computer down, and left it for a couple of days. When I went back, I once again tried to copy another 2GB folder onto the drive. It worked fine. So I was happy again. Unfortunately, after that it was once again the same behavior.

I then went into the BIOS, and changed the setting for the drive from IDE to RAID. I then reformatted the drive. It shows the 1.36TB free space fine. And now, I can't copy anything onto the drive without the dredded not enough space to copy message. And this is on a drive that was just formatted (with a quick format).

energizerabby · Jan 31, 2010

OK, now I really think I've gotten it figured out.

One seemingly minor detail I forgot to do in the BIOS, which was go into the RAID setup portion. I had skipped this because, of course, with one disk there was no RAID. However, it apparently has to be setup as "RAID Ready."

I am now going to see if this makes any difference.

energizerabby · Feb 1, 2010

OK, I definitely don't have this figured out. Now it will only take 534 MB onto the disk before giving the "not enough space" message.

I don't understand that absolutely nobody has ever seen or heard of this before. What could I possibly have done wrong?

One thing I wonder about is when I set up the disk in BIOS it says it will delete the MBR for the disk. OK, that should work. But then when I get to Vista it says that it needs to initialize the disk, which of course then wipes out the MBR that was just set up by the BIOS.

bonalymac · Feb 1, 2010

You're not the only one, I had this problem also.

At the moment, I cannot remember what I did to resolve it. I'll try and see if I can recall, but it was some months ago.

Colin

bonalymac · Feb 1, 2010

Sorry, but I can't remember what I did to resolve it

Vista Hard Drive Unusual Problem

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