[Question] Is no Native MaxLBA firmware or hardware problem?

[bilal-guvenc]

Describe what you need help with
How can I know which one my HDD has firmware or hardware problem? It's 2 TB but shown as 4 GB not started disk and it cannot read/write anything and it cannot start/format. Can I write correct size of disk into the its firmware MaxLBA or Native MaxLBA? Can I rewrite its original firmware with default settings or just its default settings?

Any additional details
C:\Program Files\Seagate\SeaChest>SeaChest_Info_windows_x86_64 -d PD0 -i

SeaChest_Info - Seagate drive utilities - NVMe Enabled
Copyright (c) 2014-2025 Seagate Technology LLC and/or its Affiliates, All Rights Reserved
SeaChest_Info Version: 2.9.2 X86_64
Build Date: Oct 10 2025
Today: 20260101T195749 User: admin

\.\PhysicalDrive0 - ST2000DM001-1E6164 - Z1E2Y7VE - CC45 - ATA
Model Number: ST2000DM001-1E6164
Serial Number: Z1E2Y7VE
Firmware Revision: CC45
World Wide Name: 5000C5004FA46028
Drive Capacity (GB/GiB): 4.14/3.86
Temperature Data:
Current Temperature (C): Not Reported
Highest Temperature (C): Not Reported
Lowest Temperature (C): Not Reported
Power On Time: Not Reported
Power On Hours: Not Reported
MaxLBA: 8089949
Native MaxLBA: Not Reported
Logical Sector Size (B): 512
Physical Sector Size (B): 512
Sector Alignment: 0
Rotation Rate (RPM): 7200
Form Factor: Not Reported
Last DST information:
Not supported
Long Drive Self Test Time: Not Supported
Interface speed:
Max Speed (Gb/s): 6.0
Negotiated Speed (Gb/s): Not Reported
Annualized Workload Rate (TB/yr): Not Reported
Total Bytes Read (B): Not Reported
Total Bytes Written (B): Not Reported
Encryption Support: Not Supported
Cache Size (MiB): Not Reported
Read Look-Ahead: Enabled
Write Cache: Enabled
Low Current Spinup: Disabled
SMART Status: Unknown or Not Supported
ATA Security Information: Supported
Firmware Download Support: Full, Segmented
Specifications Supported:
ATA8-ACS
ATA/ATAPI-7
ATA/ATAPI-6
ATA/ATAPI-5
ATA/ATAPI-4
ATA8-ACS (Revision 4)
SATA 3.0
Features Supported:
Read/Write Multiple
SATA NCQ [QD=32]
HPA
Power Management
Security
SMART [Enabled]
DCO
48bit Address
Set Max Security Extension
GPL
SMART Self-Test
SMART Error Logging
EPC [Enabled]
Write-Read-Verify
SCT Write Same
SCT Error Recovery Control
SCT Feature Control
SCT Data Tables
Adapter Information:
Adapter Type: PCI
Vendor ID: 1022h
Product ID: 43C8h
Revision: 0001h

C:\Program Files\Seagate\SeaChest>

C:\Program Files\Seagate\SeaChest>SeaChest_Configure_windows_x86_64 -d PD0 --restoreMaxLBA

SeaChest_Configure - Seagate drive utilities - NVMe Enabled
Copyright (c) 2014-2025 Seagate Technology LLC and/or its Affiliates, All Rights Reserved
SeaChest_Configure Version: 2.9.3 X86_64
Build Date: Oct 10 2025
Today: 20260101T200225 User: admin

\.\PhysicalDrive0 - ST2000DM001-1E6164 - Z1E2Y7VE - CC45 - ATA
Restoring max LBA
Failed to restore the max LBA!

C:\Program Files\Seagate\SeaChest>SeaChest_Configure_windows_x86_64 -d PD0 --setMaxLBA 3907029168

SeaChest_Configure - Seagate drive utilities - NVMe Enabled
Copyright (c) 2014-2025 Seagate Technology LLC and/or its Affiliates, All Rights Reserved
SeaChest_Configure Version: 2.9.3 X86_64
Build Date: Oct 10 2025
Today: 20260101T200249 User: admin

\.\PhysicalDrive0 - ST2000DM001-1E6164 - Z1E2Y7VE - CC45 - ATA
Setting MaxLBA to 3907029168
Failed to set the max LBA!

C:\Program Files\Seagate\SeaChest>

--------------- SeaTools for Windows v1.4.0.7 ---------------
Model Number: ST2000DM001-1E6164
Serial Number: Z1E2Y7VE
Firmware Revision: CC45
SMART - Started 1.01.2026 17:46:41
SMART - Pass 1.01.2026 17:46:48
Identify - Started 1.01.2026 17:52:09
Short DST - Started 1.01.2026 17:53:43
Short DST - Pass 1.01.2026 17:53:52
Short Generic - Started 1.01.2026 17:56:29
Short Generic - FAIL 1.01.2026 17:56:37
SeaTools Test Code: DFA79CCB
Identify - Started 1.01.2026 18:01:35
Model Number: ST2000DM001-1E6164
Serial Number: Z1E2Y7VE
Firmware Revision: CC45
Drive Capacity: 4,14 GB / 3,86 GiB
Max LBA: 8089949
Cache Size: ----
Power-On Hours: 0
Drive Temperature (C/F): 0 / 32
WWN: 5000C5004FA46028
Sector size (Logical/Physical/Allignment): 512 / 512 / 0
Signal Speed (Max/Negotiated): 6.0 / ---- Gb/s
Transport Supported: SATA 3.0
Rotation rate: 7200 RPM
Form factor: ----
Specification Supported: ATA8-ACS
Encryption Support: Not Supported
Security Mode: Supported
SMART: Enabled
Host Protected Area features: Enabled
Advanced Power Management: Not Supported
Download Microcode: Segmented

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

---

Disk 0 Online 3950 MB 3950 MB
Disk 1 Online 465 GB 2048 KB *

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> clean

DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.

DISKPART> convert mbr

DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be executed due to an I/O device error.
See the System Event Log for more information.

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

---

• Disk 0 Online 3950 MB 3950 MB
  Disk 1 Online 465 GB 2048 KB *

DISKPART> detail disk

ST2000DM001-1E6164
Disk ID: 00000000
Type : SATA
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(0103)#PCI(0001)#ATA(C00T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

There are no volumes.

DISKPART>

Environment

• OS: Windows
• Version Win11

[vonericsen]

Hi @bilal-guvenc,

This may be a limitation of the AMD driver in Windows (I see the PCI vendor is AMD so I am thinking it may use the AMD driver).
I have another old issue opened that shows an older AMD chipset only allowing Identify and SMART commands to complete, so it would not be able to read the native max LBA.

If you provide the very verbose output here, I can verify this.
openSeaChest_Info -d <handle> -i -v4 > verboseIdentify.txt

Sometimes there are also driver issues that cause the native max address command to complete, but we are unable to get the full maxLBA value back so we don't have a real value to use. This may also be the reason in the log that this is happening.
If you provide the verbose output from your attempt to use --restoreMaxLBA or --setMaxLBA 3907029168 this may also be able to provide me some insight as to what happened.

The short version is that when a device is below 2TB, operating systems/drivers/hbas use a fixed format to return the native max LBA in SCSI translation which means when our software issues the command to read it, it is truncated and we are unable to read the full result. I have not found a good workaround to this issue to force the system to use the descriptor format that avoids this limitation unfortunately, but I do have some ideas to try if we cannot get you past this issue any other way.

On your drive I see both DCO and HPA features which can manage the max LBA available.
We have an option within openSeaChest_Erase called --eraseRestoreMaxPrep which manages the interactions between these features to restore the maxLBA.

If you are able to use Linux, you can probably get it to restore from there since the linux drivers don't block these commands.
Something like a live USB version of Ubuntu should work. Then you can pull in openSeaChest and run this to try and restore it.

[bilal-guvenc]

Hi @vonericsen,
Thank you for detailed answer. Yes, I have AMD Ryzen 5 3600 and got verbose outputs from Windows 11 and live USB Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS below.

verboseIdentify.txt
verboseIdentify2.txt

verboseIdentify.txt
verboseIdentify2.txt
verboseIdentify3.txt

[vonericsen]

@bilal-guvenc,

Thank you for the logs.

It looks like the drive is aborting every command except for the identify command, which is really odd.
All SMART commands, read native max address, read log ext commands are all being aborted.

I was reviewing the standards but didn't see any reason why these would all abort.

Was this a drive that you were using, then it started having problems? Or what led you to trying to restore the native max?
Just trying to understand if you saw something prior to what we see in the logs that might give me some more background on what happened.

[bilal-guvenc]

@vonericsen,

Since it is an external disk I was using half of it for PC backups rarely and other half for DVR on TV sometimes. It was connected to TV always. TV wakes up in the background two times for a few seconds everyday to check upgrades. Probably it doesn't check/wait USB HDD and shutdowns itself quickly. Later I read other people had broken disk by same TV also.

One day disk was invisible and I restored its partitions with TestDisk. After a few months it went to invisible again but TestDisk showed no partition, additionally disk was spinning always. I thought it's making data relocation by firmware so I connected it to modem's USB port and let it spins whole day. However I couldn't get its partitions again then I decided not to touch it for years.

Now my SSD health shows 50% so I wanted to use disk for backup and tried to format it then found openSeaCest. Currently disk spins a few seconds only at the first connection. However when I tried it at Ubuntu with USB connection, it was spinning always again and there was no handler at the first try. Its spin returned to normal after reconnecting to the USB port.

[vonericsen]

@bilal-guvenc,

Thanks for the background.
I had to think about this one for little while to figure out what could be happening.

I have seen almost identical behavior once before on an SSD in a family laptop. Moving it to a different machine made no difference. All it could do is respond to the identify command.
I ended up considering that SSD dead and unusable since I could not get it out of that state.

My best guess is there is a similar issue with your HDD since it is behaving so similarly and rejecting so many other commands.

Have you tried a read test on it at all despite the low capacity?
Something like openSeaChest_GenericTests -d <handle> --twoMinuteGeneric?
This is a data safe test that only issues read commands to see if it will respond and pass those commands.
If this drive is truly this bad, then this should not be able to pass.

[bilal-guvenc]

@vonericsen,

Windows and live Ubuntu give same result. Can I install its current firmware again since it will be same version? Seagate website shows no firmware upgrade nor original one so how can I get it?

SeaChest_GenericTests_windows_x86_64 -d PD0 --twoMinuteGeneric

SeaChest_GenericTests - Seagate drive utilities - NVMe Enabled
Copyright (c) 2014-2025 Seagate Technology LLC and/or its Affiliates, All Rights Reserved
SeaChest_GenericTests Version: 2.4.2 X86_64
Build Date: Oct 10 2025
Today: 20260118T174450 User: admin

\.\PhysicalDrive0 - ST2000DM001-1E6164 - Z1E2Y7VE - CC45 - ATA
Starting two minute generic test.
Sequential Read Test at OD for ~ 45 seconds
Reading LBA: 0
Read failed within OD sequential read
Two minute generic test failed!

sudo ./openSeaChest_GenericTests -d /dev/sg0 --twoMinuteGeneric

openSeaChest_GenericTests - openSeaChest drive utilities - NVMe Enabled
Copyright (c) 2014-2025 Seagate Technology LLC and/or its Affiliates, All Rights Reserved
openSeaChest_GenericTests Version: 2.4.2 X86_64
Build Date: Jan 6 2026
Today: 20260118T151428 User: root

/dev/sg0 - ST2000DM001-1E6164 - Z1E2Y7VE - CC45 - ATA
Starting two minute generic test.
Sequential Read Test at OD for ~ 45 seconds
Reading LBA: 0
Read failed within OD sequential read
Two minute generic test failed!

[vonericsen]

@bilal-guvenc,

It looks like this drive is not responding to any requests of any kind. I think it is not going to be recoverable at this point.

Can I install its current firmware again since it will be same version? Seagate website shows no firmware upgrade nor original one so how can I get it?

If there is no firmware available on the web, then there is not way to get a new one to flash.
Even if there was a firmware file available, I doubt that the drive would accept the firmware update since all these other commands are failing and I would not expect this to recover the drive either.