lost space on hard disk mystery

[steve marchant]

This has been out on xp newsgroups without any luck. Wonder if anyone here
knows of this problem.
I formatted my 20 gig hard drive after re-partitioning to a primary of 1 gig
and a logical drive of 9 gigs in the extended partition. So there were 10
gigs unused, which should now show up as free space. But here's the rub: it
doesn't. It doesn't show in the boot displays, nor in the xp Disk
Management. These show a total capacity of only10 gigs. Any ideas, or must I
assume there's a hardware fault?

 

[Zack Aube]

After serious thinking steve marchant wrote :

This has been out on xp newsgroups without any luck. Wonder if anyone here
knows of this problem.
I formatted my 20 gig hard drive after re-partitioning to a primary of 1 gig
and a logical drive of 9 gigs in the extended partition. So there were 10
gigs unused, which should now show up as free space. But here's the rub: it
doesn't. It doesn't show in the boot displays, nor in the xp Disk
Management. These show a total capacity of only10 gigs. Any ideas, or must I
assume there's a hardware fault?

Nope, I did a 160 Gig drive. 2 partitions and I too am missing 10
gigs. I dunno, maybe XP sets a recovery partition or something?
Greater brains than mine will have to explain it.

--
______
Zack

Every operating system out there is about equal. We all suck.
( Brian Valentine of Microsoft )

 

[steve marchant]

snip Greater brains than mine will have to explain it.

or mine

 

[DaveW]

You did not say which make and model of motherboard you are using, but I am
fairly sure that your motherboard's older BIOS will not recognize any
harddrive larger than 10 GB. This used to be very common.

 

[steve marchant]

You did not say which make and model of motherboard you are using, but I
am fairly sure that your motherboard's older BIOS will not recognize any
harddrive larger than 10 GB. This used to be very common.

That's very interesting and I'll check it out. I also have a relatively new
pc with a 250 gig drive. I'll try out the "20 gig" hd in it and see what
shows up. I'll come back.

 

[Eric]

This has been out on xp newsgroups without any luck. Wonder if anyone
here knows of this problem.
I formatted my 20 gig hard drive after re-partitioning to a primary of 1
gig and a logical drive of 9 gigs in the extended partition. So there were
10 gigs unused, which should now show up as free space. But here's the
rub: it doesn't. It doesn't show in the boot displays, nor in the xp
Disk Management. These show a total capacity of only10 gigs. Any ideas, or
must I assume there's a hardware fault?

I assume you were using this 20Gb HDD (as a 20Gb HDD?) just fine prior to
re-partitioning it, so I wouldn't expect it to be hardware -- or even a
BIOS -- problem.

What does diskpart (command line) show about the drive?

Got any other software, like PartitionMagic, to look at it? Or even a live
Linux CD, with partition tools, to look closer at it..

 

[Shep©]

This has been out on xp newsgroups without any luck. Wonder if anyone here
knows of this problem.
I formatted my 20 gig hard drive after re-partitioning to a primary of 1 gig
and a logical drive of 9 gigs in the extended partition. So there were 10
gigs unused, which should now show up as free space. But here's the rub: it
doesn't. It doesn't show in the boot displays, nor in the xp Disk
Management. These show a total capacity of only10 gigs. Any ideas, or must I
assume there's a hardware fault?

Try,"SuperFdisk" free,
http://www.ptdd.com/download.htm

Make the boot floppy or CD and see what t reports and things can be
adjust with it as well

 

[Rod Speed]

This has been out on xp newsgroups without any luck. Wonder if anyone here knows of this problem.
I formatted my 20 gig hard drive after re-partitioning to a primary
of 1 gig and a logical drive of 9 gigs in the extended partition. So
there were 10 gigs unused, which should now show up as free space.
But here's the rub: it doesn't. It doesn't show in the boot displays, nor in the xp Disk
Management. These show a total capacity
of only10 gigs. Any ideas,

You sure its actually a 20G hard drive ?
What is the drive model number using Everest ?
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

or must I assume there's a hardware fault?

Very unlikely. It is possible to short stroke a drive, tell it to pretend to
be any size lower than it actually is, but its hard to do that accidentally.

 

[Rod Speed]

You did not say which make and model of motherboard you are using, but I am fairly sure that your
motherboard's older BIOS will not recognize any harddrive larger than 10 GB.

It was actually 8G, so it cant be that.

 

[steve marchant]

I assume you were using this 20Gb HDD (as a 20Gb HDD?) just fine prior to
re-partitioning it.... Yes
...so I wouldn't expect it to be hardware -- or even a
BIOS -- problem.

What does diskpart (command line) show about the drive?

Same - 10 gigs total

Got any other software, like PartitionMagic, to look at it? Or even a
live Linux CD, with partition tools, to look closer at it..

I'm afraid I don't have these. Thanks for trying to help.

 

[steve marchant]

That's very interesting and I'll check it out. I also have a relatively
new pc with a 250 gig drive. I'll try out the "20 gig" hd in it and see
what shows up. I'll come back.

No go - still shows 10 gigs in newer pc. I didn't mention that the drive
worked fine as a 20 gig previously, but I thought I'd try your suggestion in
case the BIOS software (firmware?)had got corrupted somehow.

 

[steve marchant]

//www.ptdd.com/download.htm[/URL]

Make the boot floppy or CD and see what t reports and things can be
adjust with it as well

This also shows 10 gigs total . Maybe I'll just have to settle for that.

 

[Shep©]

//www.ptdd.com/download.htm[/URL]

Make the boot floppy or CD and see what t reports and things can be
adjust with it as well

This also shows 10 gigs total . Maybe I'll just have to settle for that.

What if you remove all the partitions with Sfdisk and then use it to
re-partition?

 

[Rod Speed]

No go - still shows 10 gigs in newer pc. I didn't mention that the drive worked fine as a 20 gig
previously,

You need to wipe the drive with something like clearhdd
and create a single partition on it in the newer PC. The
MBR has some geometry detail in it and that is mostly
likely why its still showing up as 10G in the newer PC.

but I thought I'd try your suggestion in case the BIOS software (firmware?)had got corrupted
somehow.

That doesnt happen, just affecting the size the drive shows up as.

 

[steve marchant]

I've tried the suggestions kindly made to date in this thread, and I'm still
getting 10gigs - that's after wiping with clearhdd and examining with
sfdisk, and setting up in newer pc. Got to leave this now for a while - the
kids are threatening to throw me out of the house.

 

[Rod Speed]

I've tried the suggestions kindly made to date in this thread, and I'm still getting 10gigs -
that's after wiping with clearhdd and examining with sfdisk, and setting up in newer pc.

Then you should list the model number using Everest
and check that it really is a 20G hard drive.
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4181

If it really is a 20G hard drive, you've somehow managed to short stroke it.
You can reverse that using Hitachi's Drive Feature Tool.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm#FeatureTool

Got to leave this now for a while - the kids are threatening to throw me out of the house.

Time for some retrospective abortions.

 

[ModeratelyConfused]

I've tried the suggestions kindly made to date in this thread, and I'm
still getting 10gigs - that's after wiping with clearhdd and examining
with sfdisk, and setting up in newer pc. Got to leave this now for a
while - the kids are threatening to throw me out of the house.

Do you have the drive jumpered for the full 20 gigs? Some drives have a
jumper position that limits the hard disk size.

 

[Rod Speed]

Do you have the drive jumpered for the full 20 gigs? Some drives have a jumper position that
limits the hard disk size.

None that I can recall to restrict the size to 10G

That can however be done in software, 'short stroking'

Hitachi's Drive Feature Tool can do that.

Its usually done when the hard drive manufacturer chooses
to replace a drive under warranty with a more recent larger
drive. Some have chosen to short stroke the drive so that
the customer doesnt get any free drive space.

 

[JAD]

None that I can recall to restrict the size to 10G

That can however be done in software, 'short stroking'

Hitachi's Drive Feature Tool can do that.

Its usually done when the hard drive manufacturer chooses
to replace a drive under warranty with a more recent larger
drive. Some have chosen to short stroke the drive so that
the customer doesnt get any free drive space.

Yeah screw the customer buy selling a bunk drive and instead of giving him a littl more for the
trouble, they cut you instead.

 

[Rod Speed]

Yeah screw the customer buy selling a bunk drive and instead
of giving him a littl more for the trouble, they cut you instead.

Yeah, it always struck me as shit house customer service too.