256gb showing only 128gb

[luv2liv]

my acer laptop died so i ripped out its mSSD to use as an ext usb drive.
the label of the mSSD shows 256gb but when i plug into windows, i only see about 128gb. i wiped the partitions and format again but still only seeing 128gb. any ideas why?

 

[dave_the_nerd]

what's the model number? What model number does CrystalDiskInfo report?

 

[Coup27]

What does BIOS report the capacity as?

 

[Ketchup]

Just curious: what did you use to look at the partitions with? Was it showing as 256 GB in the laptop?

Also, what did you use to make it external?

 

[luv2liv]

crystal disk showing model= kingston smsr150s3256g.
i use a usb ext enclosure kit to convert the drive.
looks like im not the only 1 having this issue. seems it is actually 2 drives set to raid 0! http://superuser.com/questions/862306/msata-size-mismatch-and-inaccessible-partition-strangeness

so anyway to force windows to see the full 256gb?

 

[RecoveryForce]

Can you post a picture of both sides of the drive?

 

[Ketchup]

You need to look at the drive and the label. Does it look something like this?

http://www.ebay.ca/itm/361122901560

If it does, then the poster in your link is incorrect. This is one drive, not a RAID array.

As for the size issue, it could be an issue with the chip in the converted kit reading the drive. Can we assume that you do not have a desktop/ another laptop with an mSATA port?

What died on the laptop? Any way to fix it?

 

[luv2liv]

yes, my drive looks exactly like the pict u posted!
i have another usb kit i can stick the drive into and see...

the laptop was fried during a lightning storm. no idea if it can be fixed. so i just ripped out the drive and use as spare parts. originally, my win7 could not read it and wanted me to format. so i chose format and only see 128gb. i will try formattting again with another usb kit

 

[Ketchup]

Getting the laptop working depends what all was fried. Look and/or share your laptop's model number, and Google how much a replacement motherboard and power wire (wire from the board to the power socket) cost.

The damage really depends on what happens when you hit the power button, if the battery still has a charge on it.

 

[RecoveryForce]

I've never encountered this exact scenario before where the drive just cuts in half, but is it possible that half the memory chips are no longer reading?

 

[Ketchup]

I have read about issue with hard drive enclosures not being able to read SSDs correctly or detect hard drivers over a certain size, so I wonder if that is what's going on here.

 

[luv2liv]

i tried another kit. win7 disk management now shows "no media"
i tried using disk part. when using the "clean" command it said "no media" as well.
crystaldisk didnt even have the drive listed.

which usb kit do you recommend to overcome this size limitation?

this was a spare laptop. maybe in the future i will repair it but for now, i thought i can just use the ssd as a spare back up drive.

 

[Oyeve]

Thats probably a double sided drive. in other words, on side has 128gb and the other 128gb. Might be one side is broke so you only see 128gb.

 

[Ketchup]

Thats probably a double sided drive. in other words, on side has 128gb and the other 128gb. Might be one side is broke so you only see 128gb.

Very well could be. I would hate to tell the OP to buy something based on a hunch, and it still not do what you need. But I do see people say that the Mushkin Enhanced Atlas FLUX is a decent unit.

 

[RecoveryForce]

Thats probably a double sided drive. in other words, on side has 128gb and the other 128gb. Might be one side is broke so you only see 128gb.

I've never seen this outside of a custom ZIF cable design. For it to use the mSATA standard connector and have double sided RAID 0 SSD would mean that the system board would have to have a custom way of reading it. It isn't impossible and is quite probable a good explanation why it would work in the system and not outside. If that is the case, you would need to build a custom mSATA connector to split the two channels to separate SATA connections so that each channel could be read separately.

That is a lot of mumbling...does it make any sense at all?

As the data is of no value (judging by the OP mentioning that he formatted it), it might be a good one to just walk away from and just play with on your spare time.

 

[mxnerd]

Since Windows can't see the drive size correctly, download any Linux distro and boot with it. See if Linux can see the whole disk.

 

[Oyeve]

I've never seen this outside of a custom ZIF cable design. For it to use the mSATA standard connector and have double sided RAID 0 SSD would mean that the system board would have to have a custom way of reading it. It isn't impossible and is quite probable a good explanation why it would work in the system and not outside. If that is the case, you would need to build a custom mSATA connector to split the two channels to separate SATA connections so that each channel could be read separately.

That is a lot of mumbling...does it make any sense at all?

As the data is of no value (judging by the OP mentioning that he formatted it), it might be a good one to just walk away from and just play with on your spare time.

I just received my Transcend M.2 SSD (512GB) and installed it in my dell venue 11 pro. The bios see it as 2 transcend drives at 256GB each.

 

[RecoveryForce]

I just received my Transcend M.2 SSD (512GB) and installed it in my dell venue 11 pro. The bios see it as 2 transcend drives at 256GB each.

Cool...and good to know. Might be worth my ordering a couple to play with.

 

[Ketchup]

I just received my Transcend M.2 SSD (512GB) and installed it in my dell venue 11 pro. The bios see it as 2 transcend drives at 256GB each.

Thanks for letting us know.

 

[Oyeve]

Thanks for letting us know.

NP. Now, the fun part is installing win8.1 pro on it from a venue via USB.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just received my Transcend M.2 SSD (512GB) and installed it in my dell venue 11 pro. The bios see it as 2 transcend drives at 256GB each.

Quite frankly, that's a bit bizarre. Can you tell us more about that drive? Is it SATA, PCI-E AHCI, or PCI-E NVME? Is it advertised as a RAID0-in-one?

 

[Oyeve]

Quite frankly, that's a bit bizarre. Can you tell us more about that drive? Is it SATA, PCI-E AHCI, or PCI-E NVME? Is it advertised as a RAID0-in-one?

Its an M.2 SSD sata III. I beleive in order to get this form factor the sizes are split. Hence bios seeing 2x256. Once an OS boot is loaded the controller shows it as one drive.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Its an M.2 SSD sata III. I beleive in order to get this form factor the sizes are split. Hence bios seeing 2x256. Once an OS boot is loaded the controller shows it as one drive.

So it comes with special drivers to combine the halves?

Edit: That would also imply, that your boot partition has to be limited in size to the first half of the drive, otherwise, the boot process could crash if it tried to access the other half before the special driver initializes, and allows access to the whole drive.

 

[Oyeve]

So it comes with special drivers to combine the halves?

No. I have only them in windows 8 systems. The venues bios screen sees 2 drives. Windows 8 install sees as one. I assume win8 has drivers already or perhaps the bios provides them.

 

[VirtualLarry]

So confusing.

When you get the OS installed, can you look in Device Manager, and tell us what SATA controller driver it is using, and whether there are two drives showing in Device Manager, or just one?