How to reformat HDD & SSD to 512B Sector Size

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DouglasteR

Active Member
Dec 19, 2015
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For those dealing with locked drive issues, I recently purchased some drives off of eBay where they did this (bunch of NetApp HGST drives from eBay) and discovered that the command line utility DID work, however you have to put the PSID EXACTLY as it is on the drive. All instructions say to put only uppercase. However you need the PSID needs to be EXACT CASE. Also be careful of "1" and lower case "L". Got me a few times.


sedutil-cli -v --yesIreallywanttoERASEALLmydatausingthePSID <<EXACTPSID>> /dev/<<device>>

After that, running the command to format worked perfectly fine for me.

sg_format --format --size=512 --fmtpinfo=0 --pfu=0 -v /dev/<<device>> &
Mine appears as no compatible :(

Capture.PNG
 
Last edited:

sick1655

New Member
Mar 16, 2021
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Hello everyone, I would like to make a small update. (I still haven't been able to convert my IBM 528 byte disks to 512) I just brought you information that may be useful to you. The problem that some people need to understand is that some ibm, hgst, hp, netapp disks can be converted to 512 very easily, but we are having problems with the disks produced by Seagate for ibm. I will write everything I have experienced in the last 4 years in the comment now.

Methods I tried (Methods I encountered in the forum)
setblocksize (tried didnt work)
sedutil (tried didnt work)
sudo sg_format --format -v --size=4096 (I tried, it didn't work)
sg_format -F -F -F (I tried, it didn't work)

"A friend's comment on my post is very important, please read it."

"`Oh hey, I have this exact same drive, and exact same issue! I haven't been able to solve this yet, but maybe putting what I've tried to do on the internet might help someone actually solve it? If they do, I really hope they post it in a public place.

This SSD really is a piece of work. It's a Seagate Nytro 3131 Read Intensive 7.68TB SED SSD that's been rebranded to an IBM 3.84TB SED SSD. Not only is the firmware modified to show all the fancy IBM stuff, but the drive size has been cleaved in half for whatever reason (my current guess is so they could sell 3.84TB drives when the real ones ran out of stock?) and it being an SED absolutely doesn't help.

What I tried on Ubuntu 22.04 running on an IBM Slicestor 2448 chassis (intel x86, probably just rebranded SuperMicro?): While sg_format with --size=528 works, or at least doesn't error, other sizes (like 512, 4096, and even 4224) will fail with the Invalid field in parameter list error I've grown to despise. I even ended up going through the SCSI command spec (the SeaGate
one) to figure out if sg_format was sending incorrect commands, but even my manual attempts via sg_raw ran into that error. I'm going to guess that IBM's custom firmware doesn't follow the spec when you try to change the block size, and they have custom data fields that must be provided. Or perhaps it's actually the right format, but IBM is having the drive throw a bogus error because proprietary reasons.

echo -n -e "\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x00\x00\x10\x00\x00\x00\x03\x7e\x3e\x92\xb0\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x02\x00" | sg_raw --cmdset=1 --send=24 /dev/sg2 55 11 00 00 00 00 00 00 18 00
This was the command I have in my notes, I think this is the correct one? It's been a bit since I've worked on this. I do recall that using \x02\x10 (528) instead of \x02\x00 (512) worked, which aligns with sg_format with --size=528 working but --size=512 not.

I should probably mention that I'm not new to reformatting block sizes. The previous IBM drives I've gotten in with non-512 block sizes have all formatted fine to 512 via sg_format, but IBM-branded SSD's, especially the SED ones, reject being converted. All of the IBM HDD's I've gotten have converted fine, and even some SSD's (though not SED SSD's).

sedutil-cli can handle the SED portion of the drive fine. The standard PSID reset works fine, I can take ownership of the drive and the mess with the locking ranges, all that works as standard. Trying to do any of the sg_format stuff while the drive is locked will correctly throw errors that point to the drive being locked. Trying to do the sg_format stuff with the drive freshly PSID-reset or unlocked will result in the Invalid field in parameter list crap, so it doesn't look like the SED stuff is actually getting in the way. SeaChest, Seagates own utility for this stuff, doesn't seem to be able to handle the drive either. While SeaChest Format seems to recognize the drive, displaying some information and showing that it should be able to do 512, 520, and 528 sector sizes, all of my attempts to use SeaChest Format to reformat the drive to 512 have failed, seemingly running into the same Invalid field in parameter list error from the sg_* commands.

One of the things I found referenced in the IBM docs that is supposed to be able to change an "Advanced Function" disk into a JBOD disk is iprconfig, the IBM Power RAID Configuration utility. There's even a github repo
for it that I was able to grab, compile, and install. Unfortunately, likely due to the Slicestor not actually having a RAID card (seems to just be an HBA) let alone an IBM one, while iprconfig will launch fine it wont actually detect any RAID cards or the drive. Most of this you can find online on existing discussions if you look hard enough though, so not much of this is new info, but it is compiled here. Now to what else I've done that I haven't been able to find online at all: Using actual non-rebranded IBM hardware.

I managed to get my hands on an IBM Power8 8247-21L/S812L server and got it to boot AIX Diag 7.2 to try to have the AIX Diagnostics reformat it to JBOD/512. Unfortunately, the drive never showed up in AIX. I took the 2 HDD's that were in it, put them in a RAID 0, and installed the PowerPC version of SUSE Linux Enterprise 15 via the power of the free trial and got iprconfig running on there. This time, on the actual IBM hardware, iprconfig DID recognize the RAID card and was able to see the 2 drives I put in the RAID 0 for SUSE, but still wasn't able to see the SED SSD. After some more testing, it seems like it can't see any SSD's? Not sure if it's my setup or if the RAID card is just wack.

I proceeded to get my hands on an IBM Power9 9008-22L/L922 server, which actually came with 2 U.2 SAS 4224 block sized SSD's (not SED though), and popped the 2 RAID 0 SUSE HDD's and the SED SSD in there. Got SUSE up and running, ran iprconfig, and though the SSD was labeled "R/W Protected", it was able to see it! Unfortunately, I wasn't able to reformat it to 512. Based on the logs, it seems iprconfig was also running into the same issues as sg_format. iprconfig also wasn't able to make a single-drive RAID 0 from the drive, and just errored (TODO: Try again from SUSE and put error in here). Putting the drive back into my Ubuntu box and using sedutil-cli to take ownership, make a locking range that spans the entire drive, and having the locking range unlocked by default, and putting the drive back into the Power9 box made it stop showing up as "R/W Protected" and allowed me to create the RAID 0.

Putting the drive into my Ubuntu box, PSID-resetting the drive, putting it back into the Power9 box, and booting into AIX 7.2 it showed the drive but errored when trying to format it for JBOD/512. The drive was listed as "R/W Protected", but doing a general reformat (keeps the block size) that AIX offers not only worked, but changed the state of it to "zeroed". Booting into SUSE, I was able to use iprconfig to make it into a RAID 0, so that was neat.

In SUSE, the various /dev/sg*'s will point to the actual drives even if they are in a RAID. For me right now, /dev/sg1 and sg2 are pointing to the two 283 GB drives that are in the RAID 0 housing SUSE, and sg3 is the SSD SED. Very interestingly, smartctl in SUSE will show the SSD as having a logical block size of 512, though it wont mention the physical block size. Running sudo smartctl --test=short /dev/sg3 wont error, but doesn't seem to actually work. I ran a single short test a while ago, and I can see that in the SMART Self-test log on SUSE, but no new tests I try to run are added to that log. Starting a long test then cancelling it via sudo smartctl --test=long /dev/sg3 and sudo smartctl -X /dev/sg3 still wont error, but no cancelled test shows up in the log. Running sudo sg_readcap /dev/sg3 will show a logical block size of 512, Logical blocks per physical block exponent=0, and both lbpme=0 and lbprz=0, despite Ubuntu saying otherwise (both are set to 1). Running

sudo sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sg3
yields a different error, "MODE SELECT command: Transport Error". I'm going to guess that the IBM RAID card is not providing direct communication to the drive, and shows a false version of the drive.
Weirdly, after running the smartctl stuff just now, it allowed me to do the sg_format with --size=512. Unfortunately, removing it and checking in Ubuntu shows that it's still 528/4224 block size. It also doesn't show any of the (cancelled) SMART tests I ran on SUSE but I can run a test from Ubuntu and it does show up in the SMART log. The IBM RAID card doesn't seem to actually relay any of the test requests to the drive.

Another message: "
You might want to read this:
The HDD Oracle. • View topic - HUS724030ALS640 SAS Dell DL vs Generic GN
The HDD Oracle. • View topic - Ultrastar15K600/viperc/shasta and Viperb

These disks have software locks, it's all in the firmware on the disk. I tried more or less some brutal methods, changing firmware-parts, but killed some disks on the way.

You don't need special hardware, a regular SAS2/SAS3 HBA with IT-firmware that can talk directly to the disk is enough.
I also have no solution, but narrowed it a bit down. If partitcular 3rd vendor firmware has locks (no other sector size than 520 (SSD should have 4096) or no write without verify), you must change the whole firmware to generic.

You need to send some magic unlock code(s?) to the disk, then a secure erase, quick format and whole firmware with mode14 (then a power on/off reset/camcontrol stop/start). In a way similar to the sbr change on a HBA ( Crossflashing the Fujitsu D2607 )
I am just not sure about the sequence order and the magic codes. I found out the protection stuff for SCSI/SAS began somewhere in 2005 and upwards , it is documented at t10.org, but there are too many files.

More info is spread over config files in niagara, I just can't put it together. You need to combine the info found in the readable config files over different niagara versions, then it all narrows down to regular scsi/sas commands.

In the links hddoracle you'll find videos of baking firmware with expensive software, but that is only needed to crossflash with mode5 and mode7 directly.

The important things: quick format, secure erase and/or start/stop a special smart-test gives a small time window, where the disk accepts more or THE magic codes.

I just can't put it together."

Many people said that this friend :
View topic - Service for remote reflashing/converting SAS HDD/SSD

could solve the problem for money. I sent an e-mail to guy, but he said he had the disks I had and couldn't help.

The company sells the same disks I have on ebay and the TITLE says "FOR IBM DS8880". ebay link
This company is not a small business. I contacted this company and they said there is a way to convert these disks to 512 but there is a risk of bricking during converting.

These drives are manufactured by Seagate for IBM. you can see from here
Anyway, guys, my wife and I started to fight constantly because of these discs. If I can't solve this problem soon, I'm going to throw them away. It makes my wife very angry that I spend 3-4 hours on these discs every weekend. (150 discs in total, 3.8TB, 7.6TB, 15.3TB)

ibm2.png
ibm.png
 
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kryten

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Apr 10, 2023
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If a drive is set to format but is disconnected, if you turn the drive back on it should restart the format, you just wont see that it is doing that.
ive had it with 8tb drives, i just left them over night to finish format. then the drive came ready again
 

sick1655

New Member
Mar 16, 2021
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If a drive is set to format but is disconnected, if you turn the drive back on it should restart the format, you just wont see that it is doing that.
ive had it with 8tb drives, i just left them over night to finish format. then the drive came ready again
they were sas ssd or hdd? unfortunately there is a lot of difference between both.

about smartctl gonna check soon
 

kryten

Member
Apr 10, 2023
75
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SAS hdd disk for me.

528 block, looks like its set to 520 block sector but PI level 2 is on so uses a further 8bits making up 528
 
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sick1655

New Member
Mar 16, 2021
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SAS hdd disk for me.

528 block, looks like its set to 520 block sector but PI level 2 is on so uses a further 8bits making up 528

is it possible to see the picture of the disk?

The disks I have are produced by Seagate specifically for IBM, you can see them here.

STT005
XS7680SE70014

ibm.jpeg
 

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kryten

Member
Apr 10, 2023
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my first comment was to do with something else i saw on page 1 i think. i thought it was this page lol.
 

nev_neo

Active Member
Jul 31, 2013
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Hoping this will help someone as it took me ages to get a working solution...

I couldn't get sg_format to work with my EMC formatted HGST HUS72303CLAR3000 3TB drives, tried all the combinations of command line arguments mentioned here, but nada:

root@ubuntu:~# sg_format --format --size=512 -v /dev/sg2
HITACHI HUS72303CLAR3000 C442 peripheral_type: disk [0x0]
PROTECT=1
<< supports protection information>>
Unit serial number: YXGMGGTK
LU name: 5000cca046236594
mode sense (10) cdb: 5a 00 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00
Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes:
Mode sense number of blocks maxed out, set longlba
mode sense (10) cdb: 5a 10 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00
Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes:
<<< longlba flag set (64 bit lba) >>>
Number of blocks=5770371118 [0x157f0e02e]
Block size=520 [0x208]
mode select (10) cdb: 55 11 00 00 00 00 00 00 22 00
mode select (10):
Descriptor format, current; Sense key: Illegal Request
Additional sense: Parameter list length error
Descriptor type: Information: >> descriptor too short
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
Descriptor type: Sense key specific: Field pointer:
Error in Command: byte 7
Descriptor type: Field replaceable unit code: 0x0
Descriptor type: Block commands: Incorrect Length Indicator (ILI) clear
Descriptor type: Vendor specific [0x80]
f8 20
Descriptor type: Vendor specific [0x81]
00 0MODE SELECT command: Illegal request sense key, apart from Invalid opcode


...but I did have success with the setblocksize util!

I've put together a very slightly modded version of setblocksize here with higher possible and default timeouts (the default is way to low for bigger drives) as well as the instructions on how to compile it etc. etc.

ahouston/setblocksize

So far I've rescued 7 of my EMC 3TB HGST drives, waiting on the last batch to finish up :)

6 years later and this worked a TREAT !!
Thank you for your hard work !
 

HMPumpkin

New Member
Oct 2, 2024
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For those of you who have purchased OEM rebranded HDD or SSD from major storage vendor such as NetApp, EMC, or even HP, you might find out that the drive that you've purchased will not initialized in windows. The main reason is that the drive come formatted from the factory with a non standard sector size of 520B or 528B, and windows refused to initialized drive other than the normal 512B or 4Kb. I read online the reason that these drive are formatted that way is due to some proprietary software that these vendor uses needs the additional sector size for some fancy parity stuff.

Anyway, you probably think that you are SOL after trying every possible means to use the drive.
Luckily there is a way to change the drive sector back to 512B. It require that you install centOS linux and follow the instruction below

Look in /var/log/messages after reboot, and you will see useful information:

Mar 9 08:08:54 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:7:0: [sdh] Attached SCSI disk
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: ...ready
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Unsupported sector size 520.
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] 0 512-byte logical blocks: (0 B/0 B)
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] 520-byte physical blocks
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Write Protect is off
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Write cache: disabled, read cache: enabled, supports DPO and FUA
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Unsupported sector size 520.
Mar 9 08:08:57 vhc-carthage kernel: sd 6:0:8:0: [sdi] Attached SCSI disk

# yum install sg3_utils

# sg_scan -i
/dev/sg8: scsi6 channel=0 id=7 lun=0
NETAPP X287_S15K5288A15 NA00 [rmb=0 cmdq=1 pqual=0 pdev=0x0]
/dev/sg9: scsi6 channel=0 id=8 lun=0
NETAPP X287_S15K5288A15 NA00 [rmb=0 cmdq=1 pqual=0 pdev=0x0]

Now you should format the offending drive using the "sg_format" command.
[root@azev /]# sg_format --format --size=512 /dev/sg8

NETAPP X287_S15K5288A15 NA00 peripheral_type: disk [0x0]
Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes:
Number of blocks=573653847 [0x22314357]
Block size=520 [0x208]

A FORMAT will commence in 10 seconds
ALL data on /dev/sg8 will be DESTROYED
Press control-C to abort

It is pretty simple, and after the format is completed, you should have no problem initializing the drive in Windows. However, per Patrick, some drive might require that you've bring the drive offline and then online before it would allow you to format it.

Some people argue that the custom firmware on the drive is set to work with sector size 520B or 528B, but during my benchmark, the drive performance was pretty much on par with the normal retail channel.

Hopefully you find this information useful next time you come across a drive with other than 512B sector size.
Could you do this process in Ubuntu?
 

Samir

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Jul 21, 2017
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HSV and SFO
Anyway, guys, my wife and I started to fight constantly because of these discs. If I can't solve this problem soon, I'm going to throw them away. It makes my wife very angry that I spend 3-4 hours on these discs every weekend. (150 discs in total, 3.8TB, 7.6TB, 15.3TB)
I think many of us can relate to this and wives. But don't just throw them away--I'm sure people here will pay for you to ship them so they can continue to try. That's a lot of drives!
 

chinesestunna

Active Member
Jan 23, 2015
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Hi folks, I bought 6x HGST He8 8TB SAS drives (not branded) model HUH728080AL5201 on eBay and discovered they were formatted with T10 Type 2 protection (essentially 512+8byte 520byte sectors) and thus can't use them with TrueNAS Scale, attempting to create pool results in the "Data Integrity Protection" error.

I've been attempting to reformat them with sg_format and WD's Hugo tool in Debian and (Hugo in Windows as well) but receives errors on both, please offer your wisdom and advice!
  1. Hardware:
    1. Asus X570 mobo + 5950X cpu + 128GB RAM
    2. Dell H310 SAS controller, flashed to IT mode (LSI 9211-8i BIOS)
    3. 6x HGST He8 Drives
  2. Followed these guides:
    1. This thread
    2. Troubleshooting disk format warnings in TrueNAS SCALE
Attempts using sg_format with and without the --six flag:
Code:
root@debian:/# sg_format -v -F --size=4096 --six /dev/sda
    HGST      HUH728080AL5201   NE00   peripheral_type: disk [0x0]
      PROTECT=1
      << supports protection information>>
      Unit serial number:         R5G6GTHV
      LU name: 5000cca2620bc6fc
    mode sense(6) cdb: [1a 00 01 00 fc 00]
Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes:
block count maxed out, set <<longlba>>
    mode sense(10) cdb: [5a 10 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00]
  <<< longlba flag set (64 bit lba) >>>
  Number of blocks=15362376264 [0x393ab4248]
  Block size=512 [0x200]
    mode select(10) cdb: [55 11 00 00 00 00 00 00 24 00]

A FORMAT UNIT will commence in 15 seconds
    ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
        Press control-C to abort

A FORMAT UNIT will commence in 10 seconds
    ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
        Press control-C to abort

A FORMAT UNIT will commence in 5 seconds
    ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
        Press control-C to abort
    Format unit cdb: [04 18 00 00 00 00]
Format unit:
Descriptor format, current; Sense key: Data Protect
Additional sense: Access denied - no access rights
  Descriptor type: Information: Valid=0 (-> vendor specific) 0x0000000000000000
  Descriptor type: Command specific: 0x0000000000000000
  Descriptor type: Sense key specific: Sense_key: 0x7 unexpected
    00 00 00 00 00 00
  Descriptor type: Field replaceable unit code: 0x0
  Descriptor type: Block commands: Incorrect Length Indicator (ILI) clear
  Descriptor type: Vendor specific [0x80]
    f8 27
  DesFormat unit command: Data protect, type: sense key; write protected media?
FORMAT UNIT failed
Attempts with Hugo:
Code:
Starting HUGO CLI...

(hugo) show

     Manuf.       Model               Serial                Interface   Capacity  Type  Firmware 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G6GTHV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00     
  2) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G676BV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00     
  3) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G595EV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00     
  4) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G66LLV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00     
  5) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G6E1JV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00     
  6) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G5EJBV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00     
  7)              SSD                 220329256RM017        SATA        256   GB   SSD   SBFM61.5 

(hugo) format -s R5G6GTHV --danger-zone --simple-progress -b 4096 -p 0

Format device on 1 Device(s)...
Failed: Format command Failed on device R5G6GTHV.
    Device will not be formatted.
 

chinesestunna

Active Member
Jan 23, 2015
646
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Made some progress, correction to my OP, on closer inspection these were NetApp drives, and I was eventually able to figure out that they had TCG-Enterprise protection turned on. After more research led me to SEDUtils, I did the following:

1. First perform a reset with sedutil-cli with the <PSID> printed on drive lable
Code:
sedutil-cli --PSIDrevertAdminSP <PSID> /dev/sdg
2. Perform sg_format
Code:
format -v -F –size=512 –fmtpinfo=0 /dev/sdg
This time the command didn't error out and the drive has completed about 20% after 2 hours (in line with speeds others have reported)

Interesting observation and something that helped me was that I also have a set of SATA versions of the HGST He8 8TB drives, it was connecting one of them and comparing various command outputs that led me to the SED discovery and the need to unlock with sedutil.

Fingers crossed


Hi folks, I bought 6x HGST He8 8TB SAS drives (not branded) model HUH728080AL5201 on eBay and discovered they were formatted with T10 Type 2 protection (essentially 512+8byte 520byte sectors) and thus can't use them with TrueNAS Scale, attempting to create pool results in the "Data Integrity Protection" error.

I've been attempting to reformat them with sg_format and WD's Hugo tool in Debian and (Hugo in Windows as well) but receives errors on both, please offer your wisdom and advice!
  1. Hardware:
    1. Asus X570 mobo + 5950X cpu + 128GB RAM
    2. Dell H310 SAS controller, flashed to IT mode (LSI 9211-8i BIOS)
    3. 6x HGST He8 Drives
  2. Followed these guides:
    1. This thread
    2. Troubleshooting disk format warnings in TrueNAS SCALE
Attempts using sg_format with and without the --six flag:
Code:
root@debian:/# sg_format -v -F --size=4096 --six /dev/sda
    HGST      HUH728080AL5201   NE00   peripheral_type: disk [0x0]
      PROTECT=1
      << supports protection information>>
      Unit serial number:         R5G6GTHV
      LU name: 5000cca2620bc6fc
    mode sense(6) cdb: [1a 00 01 00 fc 00]
Mode Sense (block descriptor) data, prior to changes:
block count maxed out, set <<longlba>>
    mode sense(10) cdb: [5a 10 01 00 00 00 00 00 fc 00]
  <<< longlba flag set (64 bit lba) >>>
  Number of blocks=15362376264 [0x393ab4248]
  Block size=512 [0x200]
    mode select(10) cdb: [55 11 00 00 00 00 00 00 24 00]

A FORMAT UNIT will commence in 15 seconds
    ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
        Press control-C to abort

A FORMAT UNIT will commence in 10 seconds
    ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
        Press control-C to abort

A FORMAT UNIT will commence in 5 seconds
    ALL data on /dev/sda will be DESTROYED
        Press control-C to abort
    Format unit cdb: [04 18 00 00 00 00]
Format unit:
Descriptor format, current; Sense key: Data Protect
Additional sense: Access denied - no access rights
  Descriptor type: Information: Valid=0 (-> vendor specific) 0x0000000000000000
  Descriptor type: Command specific: 0x0000000000000000
  Descriptor type: Sense key specific: Sense_key: 0x7 unexpected
    00 00 00 00 00 00
  Descriptor type: Field replaceable unit code: 0x0
  Descriptor type: Block commands: Incorrect Length Indicator (ILI) clear
  Descriptor type: Vendor specific [0x80]
    f8 27
  DesFormat unit command: Data protect, type: sense key; write protected media?
FORMAT UNIT failed
Attempts with Hugo:
Code:
Starting HUGO CLI...

(hugo) show

     Manuf.       Model               Serial                Interface   Capacity  Type  Firmware
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  1) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G6GTHV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00    
  2) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G676BV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00    
  3) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G595EV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00    
  4) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G66LLV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00    
  5) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G6E1JV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00    
  6) HGST         HUH728080AL5201     R5G5EJBV              SAS         7865  GB   HDD   NE00    
  7)              SSD                 220329256RM017        SATA        256   GB   SSD   SBFM61.5

(hugo) format -s R5G6GTHV --danger-zone --simple-progress -b 4096 -p 0

Format device on 1 Device(s)...
Failed: Format command Failed on device R5G6GTHV.
    Device will not be formatted.
 

chinesestunna

Active Member
Jan 23, 2015
646
211
43
57
Confirmed resetting with sedutil-cli was the trick, after the test drive completed reformat this morning, I ran
Code:
sg_format --resize --count=-1
to reset sector count to MAX based on the new 512e sectors and the sg_readcap now displays the full 8TB capacity. Hurray!

I'm now in the process of reformatting the remainder of the drives with slight change back to their native 4kn sector size (including test drive) to match the He8 8TB SATA drives I have which are 4kn as well.

Hope this helps someone down the line.

Made some progress, correction to my OP, on closer inspection these were NetApp drives, and I was eventually able to figure out that they had TCG-Enterprise protection turned on. After more research led me to SEDUtils, I did the following:

1. First perform a reset with sedutil-cli with the <PSID> printed on drive lable
Code:
sedutil-cli --PSIDrevertAdminSP <PSID> /dev/sdg
2. Perform sg_format
Code:
format -v -F –size=512 –fmtpinfo=0 /dev/sdg
This time the command didn't error out and the drive has completed about 20% after 2 hours (in line with speeds others have reported)

Interesting observation and something that helped me was that I also have a set of SATA versions of the HGST He8 8TB drives, it was connecting one of them and comparing various command outputs that led me to the SED discovery and the need to unlock with sedutil.

Fingers crossed
 
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