1Tb External HDD Partition Size

[CT04]

I have an Iomega 1Tb external USB HDD. I was advised to re-partition it but
now the size has shrunk to only 465.76GB. Why is XP only showing it as 465GB
and not the 1Tb it should be? Any advice on how to partition it back to its
real size will be appreciated.

 

[JS]

Does 'Disk Management' show any free (unused) space?

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have an Iomega 1Tb external USB HDD. I was advised to re-partition it but

What do you use it for? Who advised you to repartition it. Why did the
person say to repartition it? Into how many partitions of what size
did he advise?

Exactly how did you go about repartitioning it?

now the size has shrunk to only 465.76GB. Why is XP only showing it as 465GB
and not the 1Tb it should be? Any advice on how to partition it back to its
real size will be appreciated.

Two points:

1. It shouldn't be 1TB, because that's not the size it is. All hard
drive manufacturers define 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, while the rest
of the computer world, including Windows, defines it as 2 to the 30th
power (1,073,741,824) bytes. So a 1 trillion byte drive (which is what
you have) is actually a 931GB. Some people point out that the official
international standard defines the "G" of GB as one billion, not
1,073,741,824. Correct though they are, using the binary value of GB
is so well established in the computer world that I consider using the
decimal value of a billion to be deceptive marketing.

There's more info on this here:
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com...inary-measure-vs-measure/?partner=rss&emc=rss
 
or http://tinyurl.com/m9mv37

2. So the 465GB you report is half the drive. Did you partition it
into two equal sized partitions? It sounds like you did, and what you
are looking at is just one of those two partitions.

 

[smlunatick]

I have an Iomega 1Tb external USB HDD.  I was advised to re-partition it but
now the size has shrunk to only 465.76GB.  Why is XP only showing it as465GB
and not the 1Tb it should be?  Any advice on how to partition it back to its
real size will be appreciated.

With what software did your "re-partition" this drive with? Windows
XP "Disk Management" can not change partition sizes of existing
partitions. You need to all existing partitions and then re-assign
the "unused" spaces. This will "erase" all data / files.

 

[CT04]

Thanks for the reply. In answer to your questions, I use it for my Norton
Ghost backups, nothing else.

Because of the problem I had, the tech advisor told me to reformat it. I
tried 4 times and each time I recieved the message 'unable to complete
format'. I only had the option to format it to NTFS, which is not a problem
because that it what I wanted anyway.

When re-formatting failed a computer 'knowledgeable' acquaintance suggested
that I try repartitioning it! I deleted the original partition then tried to
create a new one. The drive size only showed up as 465Gb. I then deleated
the partition again, went through the re-partition process and couldn't get
the drive any larger than the 465Gb. I did this through 'disk management'.

Apart from the fact what I did probably didn't help, I think that the HDD is
knackered anyway. It had exactly the same issues the pre-replacement had.

I am running XP SP2 on a computer that is four year old. When it comes to
formatting or re-partitioning, is it possible that my computer does not
recognize drives larger than 500Gb? If that is the case, apart from buying a
new computer, is there any software or updates I can get that will overcome
such issues?


:

What do you use it for? Who advised you to repartition it. Why did the
person say to repartition it? Into how many partitions of what size
did he advise?

Exactly how did you go about repartitioning it?
Two points:

1. It shouldn't be 1TB, because that's not the size it is. All hard
drive manufacturers define 1GB as 1,000,000,000 bytes, while the rest
of the computer world, including Windows, defines it as 2 to the 30th
power (1,073,741,824) bytes. So a 1 trillion byte drive (which is what
you have) is actually a 931GB. Some people point out that the official
international standard defines the "G" of GB as one billion, not
1,073,741,824. Correct though they are, using the binary value of GB
is so well established in the computer world that I consider using the
decimal value of a billion to be deceptive marketing.

There's more info on this here:
http://gadgetwise.blogs.nytimes.com...inary-measure-vs-measure/?partner=rss&emc=rss

or http://tinyurl.com/m9mv37

2. So the 465GB you report is half the drive. Did you partition it
into two equal sized partitions? It sounds like you did, and what you
are looking at is just one of those two partitions.

Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Thanks for the reply. In answer to your questions, I use it for my Norton
Ghost backups, nothing else.

Because of the problem I had, the tech advisor told me to reformat it. I
tried 4 times and each time I recieved the message 'unable to complete
format'. I only had the option to format it to NTFS, which is not a problem
because that it what I wanted anyway.

Windows XP will not let you create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB
(although it will let you use one if it's created externally).

When re-formatting failed a computer 'knowledgeable' acquaintance suggested
that I try repartitioning it! I deleted the original partition then tried to
create a new one. The drive size only showed up as 465Gb. I then deleated
the partition again, went through the re-partition process and couldn't get
the drive any larger than the 465Gb. I did this through 'disk management'.

Apart from the fact what I did probably didn't help, I think that the HDD is
knackered anyway. It had exactly the same issues the pre-replacement had.

I am running XP SP2 on a computer that is four year old. When it comes to
formatting or re-partitioning, is it possible that my computer does not
recognize drives larger than 500Gb?

No, that's not what's wrong.

From your description, I can't tell what's wrong, but it would appear
that either the drive is bad, or you are doing something to it
improperly.

 

[smlunatick]

Thanks for the reply.  In answer to your questions, I use it for my Norton
Ghost backups, nothing else.

Because of the problem I had, the tech advisor told me to reformat it.  I
tried 4 times and each time I recieved the message 'unable to complete
format'.  I only had the option to format it to NTFS, which is not a problem
because that it what I wanted anyway.

When re-formatting failed a computer 'knowledgeable' acquaintance suggested
that I try repartitioning it!  I deleted the original partition then tried to
create a new one. The drive size only showed up as 465Gb.  I then deleated
the partition again, went through the re-partition process and couldn't get
the drive any larger than the 465Gb. I did this through 'disk management'..

Apart from the fact what I did probably didn't help, I think that the HDDis
knackered anyway.  It had exactly the same issues the pre-replacement had.

I am running XP SP2 on a computer that is four year old.  When it comesto
formatting or re-partitioning, is it possible that my computer does not
recognize drives larger than 500Gb? If that is the case, apart from buying a
new computer, is there any software or updates I can get that will overcome
such issues?








 Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP - Windows Desktop Experience

Please access the hard drive's manufacturer support web pages and
download their advanced diagnostic tool(s.) Install the software and
test the hard drive. Windows XP at the beginning with SP1 installed
will / should create a partition greater than 128GB when using NTFS.