On Mon, 27 May 2013 19:11:32 +1000
"Adam Goryachev" [off-list ref] wrote:

On Mon, May 27, 2013 18:38, Andrea Bolandrina wrote:

quoted

Hi Tudor.

All disks I have report the same size, even though they are different
brand/model

Discussion on this list in the past would suggest the manufacturers have
agreed to make equal sized drives in future, so this shouldn't really be
an issue for 2TB drives or larger.

There are also some overly smart BIOSes, which in certain motherboard models
and versions are configured to automatically store a backup of the BIOS on the
primary HDD. What they do is cut off a small area from the HDD's "tail" by
establishing an HPA there, and put the BIOS copy on that area, possibly
overwriting whatever was there previously.

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=885212
http://matt.simerson.net/news/2009/07/22/hpa-host-protected-area
http://www.gigabyte.com/webpage/8/article_04_bios_explained.htm

The forum discussion linked cites the actual number to be 2113 sectors which is
about 1 MB.

Personally I always leave about 8 MB in the end of all disks just in case.


-- 
With respect,
Roman