HDD last sector uneadable under Vista... readable under Linux

Aramys

Hello,

I use a 160 Gb Seagate Momentus 7200.2 SATA HDD (ST9160823AS) in my Asus
F3Sa notebook and I have the following problem :

For security reasons, the encryption software I want to use check if the
last sector of my HDD is readable before installing. As it says there is
a problem, I wanted to check by myself using the following command :

dd if=[harddrive] of=[output file] bs=512 count=1 skip=[total guaranteed
sectors - 1]

Under Vista (see dd for Windows on Wikipedia), it returns an empty file,
meaning that the last sector is unreadable.

Under Linux, the very same command returns data without any problem. The
last sector is perfectly readable.

Thinking to a driver problem, I wrote to Intel (ICH8M chip) and they
replied "We understand your concern but the problem you described is
directly related to the motherboard or hard drive manufacturer, not
chipset software". Very strange as the problem does not exist under
Linux with the same hardware.

I wrote to Asus and they told to me to ask Seagate... I asked Seagate
and they explained to me the problem seems to be software/driver/OS related.

So... Now I'm stuck and I can't install my encryption software. What can
I do. Could it be a problem of Windows Vista ?

Aramys

PS : I use the latest computer bios, updated Vista and latest Intel
chipset driver. The HDD health has been checked with a dozen of Linux or
Windows tools. It's in perfect condition.