Topic: hard drive problem

[twiggy]

i have just got a new hard drive well its not actual new but its new to me. its 1gb in size because that is waht i bought it as and that waht it says on the top. but when i installed it and went on windows (xp) it says the drive is only 400mb in size? what is going on? and how could i fix the problem??? i have scanned disked and defragged both came back clean.

mark

[Sandra]

You usually get a little less available afer formatting a drive but thats a bit of an excessive loss Mark.
Which make and model of drive is it ?
Can you get the drive utility off the makers site and run that and see if it finds something  

[twiggy]

hi there i have actual found the problem. it has been particitoned into two parts.

so dos anyone no how i can un-do this? so i dont have any jsut one complete drive?

thanks mark

[twiggy]

maybe there is some software for windows that would make it easyer? or quicker?

any one no? let me no.

thanks mark

[Sandra]

Ok Mark, go to Admin Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management.
That should show you youre original Hard drive and the new one.
Delete the partiotions in the new drive and then reformat it, I assume that you havent anything on it that you want to save ?

[twiggy]

ok bigger problems now. i have done something but dont no waht. the hard drive comes up in the bios but not in windows. when i run a programme called recover it all it picks the harddrive up. How do i get windows to pick it up again so i can re-format it?

thanks mark

[Sandra]

Does it not show in disk manager now Mark ?
Or even in device manager ?

[Reno]

this is what i would do, if theres nothing on this hd worth saving, which i assume theres not by the size. I suggest getting a win98 startup disk booting the machine up using it and using the fdisk command. You can partrician the whole hard drive with one single partrician. Then format and use it for whatever you want.

If it still only lets you use half the drive check what mode you have the hardrive in. Ive had it autodetect hds and assign it to LBA when it should be normal, and it cuts the size to 500mbs. That was a real nutcruncher when i finally figured it out.