lost space on hard disk mystery

  • Thread starter Thread starter steve marchant
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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?
 
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?
Click to expand...

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 )
 
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.
 
DaveW said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
steve marchant said:
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?
Click to expand...

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..
 
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?
Click to expand...

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 :)
 
steve marchant said:
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,
Click to expand...

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?
Click to expand...

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.
 
DaveW said:
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.
Click to expand...

It was actually 8G, so it cant be that.
 
Eric said:
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?
Click to expand...

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..
Click to expand...
I'm afraid I don't have these. Thanks for trying to help.
 
> "DaveW said:
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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
No go - still shows 10 gigs in newer pc. I didn't mention that the drive worked fine as a 20 gig
previously,
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

That doesnt happen, just affecting the size the drive shows up as.
 
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.
 
steve marchant said:
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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

Time for some retrospective abortions.
 
steve marchant said:
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.
Click to expand...

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

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.
 
Rod Speed said:
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.
Click to expand...
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 screw the customer buy selling a bunk drive and instead
of giving him a littl more for the trouble, they cut you instead.
Click to expand...

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

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