In case anybody was wondering, I did figure out what I did wrong with the 100->500GB disk upgrade.
The original disk in a Dell notebook came with a host protected area (HPA). Dell uses this area to store extra features, which in this case was Media Direct. The cloning process (Acronis True-Image) duplicates track 0, which includes code in LBA-3 that exposes the Media Direct package when requested. However, the cloning process does not copy the contents of the HPA. The result is that the OS reports that there is HPA beginning at about 95GB. This is a boot-up BIOS feature that occurs in both Windows and Linux. When the new disk is booted, only the first 90-plus GB are seen, and the rest (400GB or so) are behind the HPA. The solution is to zap LBA-3, the sector that contains the HPA activation/exposure jump address. If this is zero, the system sees no HPA, and all is fine. ************************************************************************* ** List info, subscription management, list rules, archives, privacy ** ** policy, calmness, a member map, and more at http://www.cguys.org/ ** *************************************************************************
