Missing Space on Hard Drive - Drive shows only 70% of Actual Space

[Tilman J Schultz]

Hi there,


I have just reformatted several partitions on a 200GB Drive. The Partitions
were formatted with FAT32, and I am running WIN2K on my computer.
For some reason, the drive now only shows up as 131GB rather than 200GB - is
there a tool that can show me what happened to the rest of the space? And
how can I "reclaim" the lost space?
Partition Magic does not see the "lost space" either.

Have a nice weekend,

Tilman

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Tilman.

First, does your computer BIOS support "big drives", those over about 137
GB, which require 48-bit addressing? Google for "big drives" for details
about this limitation.

If it does, then see responses to your other post about formatting FAT32 on
volumes larger than 32 GB for use in Win2K or WinXP.

RC

 

[Tilman J Schultz]

Hi there,

and thanks for the hint, R.C.
I am runing Win2K and have all my personal disks formatted in NTFS for
obvious reasons.
My BIOS supports large files, I am running a both 250 GB and 80GB Hard Disks
without problems.
I am formatting this hard additional 200GB hard disk for a friend who is
running Win98 and OS/2 and does not want to upgrade to Win2K or XP.
Therefore it needs to be formatted in FAT32.

Formatting is also no problem, I created a string of 32GB partitions in
FAT32 FS. Right now, there are five partitions with FAT32 on the disk,
(4x32GB and 1x3GB) = 131GB.

My problem is somewhat more bizzarre. For some reason, neither the Disk
Management Utility nor Partition Magic seem to be able to recognise all of
the hard drive (Both utilities only show 130GB out of 200GB). The "Lost
Space" does not show up as unformatted or available space using either of
the tools. The disk is just shown as a 130GB disk, with 70BG seemingly lost!

This has me confused, because my system SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE AND READ ALL
THE sectors on that disk.

Is there a way that I can force a format for the entire disk. Or are there
any other tools to "reclaim" the disk space that I cannot see?

Thanks, and have weekend,

Tilman

P.S. Will follow up your leads in Google Groups and the leads from the
earlier string now.

 

[Enkidu]

Hi there,

and thanks for the hint, R.C.
I am runing Win2K and have all my personal disks formatted in NTFS for
obvious reasons.
My BIOS supports large files, I am running a both 250 GB and 80GB Hard Disks
without problems.
I am formatting this hard additional 200GB hard disk for a friend who is
running Win98 and OS/2 and does not want to upgrade to Win2K or XP.
Therefore it needs to be formatted in FAT32.

Formatting is also no problem, I created a string of 32GB partitions in
FAT32 FS. Right now, there are five partitions with FAT32 on the disk,
(4x32GB and 1x3GB) = 131GB.

My problem is somewhat more bizzarre. For some reason, neither the Disk
Management Utility nor Partition Magic seem to be able to recognise all of
the hard drive (Both utilities only show 130GB out of 200GB). The "Lost
Space" does not show up as unformatted or available space using either of
the tools. The disk is just shown as a 130GB disk, with 70BG seemingly lost!

This has me confused, because my system SHOULD BE ABLE TO SEE AND READ ALL
THE sectors on that disk.

Is there a way that I can force a format for the entire disk. Or are there
any other tools to "reclaim" the disk space that I cannot see?

There may be two reasons. The first is that disk manufacturers call
1000 = 1k, 1000000 = 1M and 100000000000 = 1G. Operating systems
however call 1024 = 1k, 1024x1024 = 1M. and 1024x1024x1024 = 1G.

So 200 (disk) GB = about 186 (OS) GB. Another reason for the "loss" of
space is in the formatting. Space is allocated for directories, and
the larger the disk the more space you lose to this. However, 130GB
seems a bit low.

Cheers,

Cliff

 

[AjayK]

Hey man,
This prob had disturbed me for whole 2 weeks and finally i was able t
fix it.
Everything is in the hand of Registry. Just a 3 step REgistry editio
and u *Magically* get back ur lost hdd space. The moment u edit u
registry and restart ur machine and go to computer management it show
u Unallocated space found. Well rhe reg-edition is as followzs:
For win2k server and prof's
RUN=>regedit=>
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\Atapi\
Parameters:
On the right hand side pane:Add this Keyvalue

Right click and select DWORD Value
Name the key as: EnableBigLba
Modify this key with value: 0X1

Restart ur machine and go to comp mgmt and u find unallocated missin
disk space

It works miracle
Good Luck Buddy

*Hi there,


I have just reformatted several partitions on a 200GB Drive. Th
Partitions
were formatted with FAT32, and I am running WIN2K on my computer.
For some reason, the drive now only shows up as 131GB rather tha
200GB - is
there a tool that can show me what happened to the rest of the space
And
how can I "reclaim" the lost space?
Partition Magic does not see the "lost space" either.

Have a nice weekend,

Tilman

-
Ajay