HGST 4kn support on Windows 10 with Z97 and Asmedia?

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We've been trying hard and failed to get an HGST Ultrastar 2TB 7K6000 SATA 4KN to work on Windows 8.1 Pro and 10. Windows reports an inaccurate drive size, and Disk Management fails to initialize the disk, returning 'The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error' after a couple of minutes.

To eliminate hardware issues as the cause, we tested with Linux (SystemRescueCd) and found the drive to be working properly; we were able to partition it with fdisk and format it as NTFS with mkntfs. Back in Windows, the drive was just as inaccessible as before. BIOS/UEFI also recognizes the disk and correctly reports its capacity.

We feel we have exhausted all possibilities that we can think of, and now we're wondering whether Windows 8.1/10 even supports 4Kn disks. We've found several contradictory posts on this via Google, and we're getting nowhere. HGST specifications for this model don't seem to mention anything about compatibility with Windows 8.1/10.

Is this disk compatible with Windows 8.1/10?

Ro Achterberg

Posted 2016-06-30T01:21:55.300

Reputation: 111

Yes; I am using that exact drive with Windows 10 from the machine I am using to submit this comment ( I didn't do anything to make it happen ) – Ramhound – 2016-06-30T01:52:45.903

What SATA controller are you using? – Ro Achterberg – 2016-06-30T09:07:49.757

Does it matter, SATA is SATA, I am an Admin on dozens of machines at work, and own a half dozen I have never had a SATA drive not work in a system. – Ramhound – 2016-06-30T11:37:55.780

What I'm reading is that chipsets have varying support for 4Kn. So yes, I think it would help to know. – Ro Achterberg – 2016-06-30T14:13:12.290

Answers

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Versions of Intel RST before version 9.6 are known to have problems with HDDs with 4K sectors. You should just uninstall Intel Rapid Storage Technology to see if that resolves your problem.

Intel® Rapid Storage Technology (Intel® RST) version 9.6 and newer supports 4k sector disks if the device supports 512 byte emulation (512e). Intel RST does not support 4k native sector size devices.

What happens if I try to use an older version of the driver?

If you try to install the operating system on a 512e disk with a driver older than Intel RST version 9.6, the install process might not complete.

If the operating system does install, do not try to upgrade to Intel RST version 9.6 without reinstalling your operating system.

AHCI

If your system has a supported AHCI controller, you do not need to load the Intel RST driver during the operating system. If you choose to manually load the driver, load Intel RST version 9.6 or newer.

Reference: Support for 4k Sector Disks

Mr. Helpful

Posted 2016-06-30T01:21:55.300

Reputation: 21

Would be helpful to point out and (quote) documentation that indicates IRST is the soruce of compatability problems with 4K sectors. – Ramhound – 2016-07-18T16:45:50.003

They are short and incomplete. Feel free to check the help center to understand the reasons quoting a reference link is important. "Short and Sweet" are not a good combination for answers. I don't normally bother doing an edit to answer like you submitted, i normally just vote and move on, because I don't normally see an improvement out of future answers from users who submit link-only answers. – Ramhound – 2016-07-18T16:50:09.897

You should read the help center. Don't aplogize. Just improve. – Ramhound – 2016-07-18T16:54:25.190

1We gave up on the issue and returned the drive. We had upgraded all motherboard utilities to their latest versions. Even flashed the BIOS to its most current version. Nothing helped. I still believe the controller to be incompatible with advanced format, but I have no conclusive evidence of that. – Ro Achterberg – 2016-07-18T19:57:28.120

Asked: 2016-06-30T01:21:55.300

Viewed: 889 times

Active: 2016-07-18T16:55:56.047