Advanced Format HDDs, USB enclosures and Windows / Linux compatibility

Question

The environment

I just bought a 1 TB Seagate Barracuda ST1000LM048 HDD. It's an Advanced Format drive, with 4096-byte sectors.

I planned using it with my cheap-but-trusted (and I do mean cheap, it's really generic chinese and I paid about 5 USD for it) 2.5" HDD enclosure, that's been with me for 5 years and multiple HDDs with no issues (I'm not sure if I ever used an Advanced Format HDD with it). It's basically a JMicron JM20329 Hi-Speed USB to SATA Bridge chip with some transistors and a USB port. Looks exactly like this:

When I bought the 1 TB HDD, I wasn't aware of the issues involving Advanced Format drives and HDD enclosures. I strongly suspect it might be playing a part here, but under certain circunstances I can access the data.

Now I'm not sure sure, because I just found an older Western Digital 500 GB Advanced Format HDD and it shows up on Windows Explorer using this same enclosure... What's going on here?!

The issue

When I connect it via USB enclosure to a Windows 8.1 laptop, no new volumes show up on Windows Explorer. When running Fedora 25 on the same laptop, connected via the same HDD enclosure, I can see the folders and files.

It works on a different Fedora 25 PC when I connect it via internal SATA. I have no Windows PC nearby where I can test it on internal SATA.

Possibly related: There seems to be something wrong / strange with the partition scheme, see bold text in the sections below. I'm really puzzled by it, as I have never seen a similar case before.

Tests and diagnostics

Windows 8.1 via USB Enclosure on my laptop

Since others have asked: I attach the drive after Windows has booted. Will see if it has any difference attaching it prior to boot.

• The USB enclosure gets automatically detected and installed as "USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge".
• The drive doesn't show up in Windows Explorer.
• Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) shows the disk as "Online, unallocated 931.5 GB, MBR-style partition table":

Fedora 25 via USB Enclosure on my laptop

I can see the files and folders and copy data to and from the drive.

disks information

• Model: ST1000LM048-2E7172 (SDM1)
• Size: 1.0 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
• There's no Partitioning entry
• Serial Number: [redacted]
• Assessment: Disk is OK, one bad sector.
• Volumes:
  • Size: 1.0 TB — 850 GB free (15.0% full)
  • Device: /dev/sdc (notice there's no partition number!)
  • There's no Partition Type entry
  • Contents: NTFS — Mounted at /run/media/[redacted]

disks SMART report

• Updated: 47 years, 1 month and 23 days ago (!!!)
• Temperature: ---
• Powered on: ---
• Self-test result: Unknown ()
• Self assessment: Threshold not exceeded
• Overall assessment: Disk is OK, one bad sector
• SMART Attributes: the table is entirely blank (!!!)

fdisk -l output

Disk /dev/sdc: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x[redacted]

Fedora 25 via internal SATA on a desktop PC

I can see the files and folders and copy data to and from the drive.

disks information

• Model: ST1000LM048-2E7172 (SDM1)
• Size: 1.0 TB (1,000,204,886,016 bytes)
• There's no Partitioning entry
• Serial Number: [redacted], same as above
• Assessment: Disk is OK (33 C / 91 F).
• Volumes:
  • Size: 1.0 TB — 850 GB free (15.0% full)
  • Device: /dev/sda (notice there's no partition number!)
  • There's no Partition Type entry
  • Contents: NTFS — Mounted at /run/media/[redacted]

disks SMART report

• Updated: Less than a minute ago
• Temperature: 36 C / 97 F
• Powered on: 8 hours and 0 minutes
• Self-test result: Last self-test completed successfully
• Self assessment: Threshold not exceeded
• Overall assessment: Disk is OK
• SMART Attributes: see image below

fdisk -l output

Disk /dev/sda: 931.5 GiB, 1000204886016 bytes, 1953525168 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x[redacted]

Answer 1

I believe the issue that you are having is that there is simply NO partitioning scheme on the disk.

What you may not realise is that Linux will allow you to treat the whole disk as a block device - ie a single big partition - and all the information you've provided seems to point to this kind of setup. I believe Windows will not support a raw block device.

The typical way to fix this problem would be to copy the data elsewhere, partition and then format the disk (using FAT or NTFS or some kind of file system both Windows and Linux can read) and then copying the data back on. If it is possible to do this whole process without actually moving the data off the disk, its high risk, and you really should back up the data first anyway, putting you back to square one.

Answer 2

Extracts from provided fdisk -l output

in Fedora 25 via USB Enclosure
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 512 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 512 bytes / 512 bytes

in Fedora 25 via internal SATA
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes

The USB enclosure does not let OS (i.e. Fedora) recognize the correct disk sector size.

Two possible solutions:

1. Use enclosure that report over USB the same thing as SATA/eSATA.
   

2. Use the disk one way only. i.e. through USB or SATA/eSATA and that means right from beginning, i.e. starting from partition the disk, format filesystem(s) and then use it one way only. Do not mix USB and SATA/eSATA.
   

If you decide to do 2 and use USB, make sure that all disk partitioning is done on 4KB boundary and filesystem block size is 4KB minimum (or any number that is multiple of 4KB). If you do not do that, disk access might be not aligned on 4KB boundary and IO would be very slow.