My 80 Gig hard drive is showing up as 31.4 Gigs

[Guest]

I don't understand why windows is reading that my hard drive is only 31.4
gigs, I don't have anything on it except for windows xp. I know I didn't buy
an 80 gig hard drive and they give my a 31.4 gig, so can someone straighten
this out for me?
Thanks,
Brad

 

[Mark Delaney]

I don't understand why windows is reading that my hard drive is only 31.4
gigs, I don't have anything on it except for windows xp. I know I didn't
buy
an 80 gig hard drive and they give my a 31.4 gig, so can someone
straighten
this out for me?
Thanks,

There are jumper configurations clearly illustrated on your hard drive's
label. Open the case, take your disk out and change the jumpers for the
configuration that says "larger than 32GB" or something similar.

Mark Delaney, MCT

 

[Peter]

extract from...http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-6130-0.html?forumID=7&threadID=35407&messageID=409699


***Some drives have jumper settings that allow them to be compatible with older BIOSs that wouldn't
recognize drives less than 32GB drives at all (or would recognize them incorrectly) and that when
set tell the drive to pretend to be only 32GB. You can fix that by changing the jumper settings.
Check your drive manufacturer's Web site or do a Google search with the name of your drive (model #)
and "32 GB" and/or "Jumper," to find the exact settings. This is the easiest thing to check. (A
jumper, for those who aren't familiar with the term, is a little plastic piece that you can put
between two pins that allows you to select certain settings that must be made at a hardware level.
All modern hard drives have one--for Master or Slave, when in use with two or more drives--and some
have more than one.) This is the most likely solution, especially since you were running a 40GB
drive before.

Second, your BIOS may be recognizing it incorrectly. This is less likely, since you had the 40GB
drive before, but not impossible (some BIOSs recognize some but not all drives properly, and some
have issues with drives less than 64GB). This is a little harder to fix but not too bad. Find out
the make of your motherboard (if you don't know, you can either check your manufacturer's Web site,
if you bought it from a major manufacturer, or use CPU-Z, or a like program, which will tell you the
chipset of your motherboard). Go to the Web site and check for a BIOS update. Run that; it requires
booting up from a formatted disk. BE CAREFUL HERE: read all warnings and follow instructions to the
letter; updating your BIOS is totally safe if done correctly but is VERY risky if you don't follow
instructions, as you can make your computer unbootable...***
:I don't understand why windows is reading that my hard drive is only 31.4
: gigs, I don't have anything on it except for windows xp. I know I didn't buy
: an 80 gig hard drive and they give my a 31.4 gig, so can someone straighten
: this out for me?
: Thanks,
: Brad
: --
: "You know what they call a quarter pounder with cheese in France?","A royale
: with cheese" John T. in Pulp Fiction

 

[Michael Cecil]

I don't understand why windows is reading that my hard drive is only 31.4
gigs, I don't have anything on it except for windows xp. I know I didn't buy
an 80 gig hard drive and they give my a 31.4 gig, so can someone straighten
this out for me?
Thanks,
Brad

Besides the jumper situation, perhaps you formatted it with XP and used
FAT32 which XP will only do up to 32GB.

If that is the case, then you'd need a partition tool like Partition Magic
or BING which you can try for free from
http://www.bootitng.com/bootitng.html

 

[Bob Harris]

Look in the XP disk management tool. Does the disk appear as 80 Gig with
only 31.4 Gig formated as C:\ and the rest somehting else, like "raw" or
"unformatted"? If so, you can make a second paritition in that extas space
from within disk management.

But, if disk managment shows only 31.4 Gig on the whole disk, then check
your BIOS or the disk jumpers.

Also, as one other reply mentioned, if the format of C:\ is FAT32, then the
maximum XP will do for you is 32 Gig (+-, depending how you define a Gig,
base 10 or nearest base 2). But, XP will happily use a larger FAT32
partition, if some other program makes it.

If you do not mind losing everthing on the disk, you could use some free
third-party tools to remove the paritions and re-create new ones. Every
disk makers offers these tools on their web sites.

If you do mind losing data (I would!), then use something like Parition
Magic, which can extend/merge/shrink.change parition without data loss.
But, a prudent use would backup all important personal data before using
such tools, in case of the unexpected.

Finally, consider the merits of multiple partition, like one for the
operating system and programs, and one for your personal data (DOC, XLS,
JPG, etc).