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HD Capacity Mismatch

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8 replies

by n4syth

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I have a 40 GB Western Digital hard drive (WD400BB) with WinXP installed.
Hard drive properties only shows a capacity of 5 GB....
When I run Disk Management the list at the top shows a healthy(active) hard drive with a capacity of 5GB while the graphic at the bottom shows that it is a healthy(active) hard drive with a capacity of 37.27 GB.
Where is the missing 35 GB????
Why the mismatch of capacity within the same utility???
Ran the WD Lifeguard utility and everything indicated a healthy 40 GB HD....
Have tried the HD in 2 different systems and get the same result so not system or BIOS problem.
Have tried jumpering as cable select as well as master --- no difference.
I suspect reformatting might be the solution, but would really like to know why this would happen and if there is something simple that I may be missing that could be changed to fix this problem.

8 replies

by freetechie

First make sure that your jumpers are set properly. I know what you said about checking it. But double check.

Then, I would say format it but when you boot into the cd for the install make sure you delete the 5gb partition and then make a new parition with the full drive capacity.

I have the same hard drive BTW.

What does the file system say about the partition? NTFS, Fat32? This is clue.

by n4syth

Comment from n4syth on 07/27/05 :
Thanks for the feedback... pretty much what I expected I would need to do.
The drive is presently FAT32 (owner upgraded from Win98 without changing) but will switch to NTSF when reformating/reloading.
Still curious WHY it would only recognize 5GB...??
Could FAT32 cause this????

by n4syth

Thanks for the feedback... pretty much what I expected I would need to do.
The drive is presently FAT32 (owner upgraded from Win98 without changing) but will switch to NTSF when reformating/reloading.
Still curious WHY it would only recognize 5GB...??
Could FAT32 cause this????

by ghimpe--

There is a posibility that the drive is partitioned in 2 partitions, but only the first (5 Gb) one is formated, and the other one isn't. Check Disk Management and see if it is so. If yes, then format the second partition as well.

Also, if posible ask the previous owner if he has used an overlay program for that hard drive.

by n4syth

No, just one partition.
As I mentioned above 'When I run Disk Management the list at the top shows a healthy(active) hard drive with a capacity of 5GB while the graphic at the bottom shows that it is a healthy(active) hard drive with a capacity of 37.27 GB.'
Checking with fdisk shows just one partition of 37 GB.

by hal 9000

Well what does it show in My Computer under Properties?

If you want to convert it to a NTFS Partition all you need do is left click on Start, Run then in the command line type in convert c: /FS:NTFS You will then be told that this can not be run now do you wish to schedule it for the next reboot answer yes and the next time you reboot you will see a Scandisk and then the drive will be converted across to a NTFS Partition and retain all the data. If nothing else it will get rid of a lot of slack space.

As it is showing the full size of the Drive in Windows there has to be something else going on here have a look in the BIOS and see if the Drive size has been limited or something idiot like that.

Col

by n4syth

Ran the conversion to NTFS and was then able to access the entire 40 GB.
Thanks for your input.

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