Formatting USB hard drive

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#2923882 8-Jun-2022 11:29

You seem very reluctant to show or mention the manufacturer of the actual drive, There are plenty of 16tb drives on aliexpress that are just fake.

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wellygary

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#2923894 8-Jun-2022 11:44

sugarpie:

But I have put files onto the drive and had no problem in that regard. It just seems to be the damn partitioning which won't work

Copying files will work because there is actual space on the Drive,

The Partitioning may be failing because you are trying to make partitions bigger than the actual size of the "real" drive

Oblivian

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#2923895 8-Jun-2022 11:44

The long and short of it is, If it is a counterfeit. You won't actually know until you try and format the data area that doesn't exist at low level.

Standard tools that do quick format or read the partition headers will do so blindly. And say 'no worries, it's finnneeee'. That's what they rely on.

Enter random write tools for sectors that *should* exist, and will show you if they don't.

https://rmprepusb.com/tutorials/007-all-about-fake-sd-cards-and-usb-flash-drives/

linw

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#2923949 8-Jun-2022 13:54

Double WOW - ali has 16TB portable SSD drives for $11.18!!!! Make that Triple WOW.

concordnz

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#2923956 8-Jun-2022 14:07

Unless you paid $800-$1000 for it and it's a Seagate or Western Digital, then it's a guaranteed fake.

As someone else said - you are going about it the wrong way, trying to create partitions.
Create 1 x partition (on a genuine drive)

And use a program like 'Macrim Reflect' to create an image file of each machine you want to back up. - you can store them in different 'sub-folders' or even all in the same folder-if you name them well.
These images, will only take up the used 'data size' (& you can even compress, to save even more space at the cost of longer restore time)

You are heading into a world of pain if you try to do it using partitions, on your separate drive - particularly when you change a SSD on device and it starts to exceed the size of your backup partition.....
As well as inconsistencies related to boot sector information I suspect.

Lias

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#2924034 8-Jun-2022 18:02

sugarpie:

It came brand new (supposedly) from AliExpress - yes I know, buyer beware and all that. But I have put files onto the drive and had no problem in that regard. It just seems to be the damn partitioning which won't work

99% it's fake. It's a drive a fraction of the size it claims to be, with a modified firmware that reports the claimed capacity and will let you write small amounts of data but trying to access the full capacity causes errors and/or data being overwritten.

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#2924035 8-Jun-2022 18:03

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/16tb-usb-ssd-too-good-to-be-true/

Inphinity

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#2924039 8-Jun-2022 18:24

sugarpie:

This could be a possibility. But I have checked with all the usual Windows apps - disk management, explorer, command prompt (diskpart), several partition apps, I even downloaded some utilities which give system information (Speccy which I've used before) and they all say 16tb.....in real life 15.2tb. So I'm assuming the drive is genuine. It came brand new (supposedly) from AliExpress - yes I know, buyer beware and all that. But I have put files onto the drive and had no problem in that regard. It just seems to be the damn partitioning which won't work

I'm pretty sure there are more fake drives of this size than real ones on AliExpress (and the real ones are all around the $600+ mark - in which case just buy branded local for warranty etc). And the behaviours you're describing match what you'd likely see with a fake drive. It's not that they have no capacity, they're just nowhere near the stated capacity. Maybe it's a 1TB drive labelled as 16TB for example. As others have mentioned, you can only really identify by trying to write to memory areas that just aren't there. Almost all of the system info tools are just going "Hello drive, how big are you?" and accepting the answer. Everything you've tried that involves actually using areas of the drive beyond it's likely actual capacity is failing. While there's a possibility you just have a faulty drive, given the source, I'd say it's almost certainly a fake device.

Jase2985

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#2924040 8-Jun-2022 18:29

a "16tb" drive would be 14.52tb wouldn't it?

things just aren't adding up here

JaseNZ

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#2924049 8-Jun-2022 18:56

Full of ssd goodness 😃

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sugarpie

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#2924080 8-Jun-2022 20:37

concordnz: Unless you paid $800-$1000 for it and it's a Seagate or Western Digital, then it's a guaranteed fake.

As someone else said - you are going about it the wrong way, trying to create partitions.
Create 1 x partition (on a genuine drive)

And use a program like 'Macrim Reflect' to create an image file of each machine you want to back up. - you can store them in different 'sub-folders' or even all in the same folder-if you name them well.
These images, will only take up the used 'data size' (& you can even compress, to save even more space at the cost of longer restore time)

You are heading into a world of pain if you try to do it using partitions, on your separate drive - particularly when you change a SSD on device and it starts to exceed the size of your backup partition.....
As well as inconsistencies related to boot sector information I suspect.

That was another problem I had - I tried that and Macrium errored after a few minutes saying "drive is not accessible" or something similar despite the drive being connected. My USB ports have been working fine for years so I can't understand why that happened. I've been doing image backups for years onto other USB drives

sugarpie

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#2924081 8-Jun-2022 20:38

JaseNZ:

Full of ssd goodness 😃

Looks legit 😅

sugarpie

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#2924082 8-Jun-2022 20:39

Jase2985:

a "16tb" drive would be 14.52tb wouldn't it?

things just aren't adding up here

Yes it does sound strange. I've been getting a consistent reading of 15.2tb on all programs I've tried

sugarpie

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#2924083 8-Jun-2022 20:42

Lias:

https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/16tb-usb-ssd-too-good-to-be-true/

WOW!! Sounds familiar...........😰

Oblivian

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#2924095 8-Jun-2022 21:07

Again, ignore what apps tell you. It's a reported amount. Not a physical amount

I can put a ferrari badge on a Honda city with body kit, doesn't necessarily mean it has a ferrari V12 in it

But get the earlier test app and interrogate the chips and sectors. We're waiting with baited breath for confirmation.

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