38 gigs of 40 gig Hard Drive 3

[Intown]

Ok so I have a maxtor 40 Gig 5400RPM hard drive that has been wiped a few times and everytime the size of hard drive gets smaller. It is saying it is only 38 gigs now. when I first got it it was reading 40.2 gigs. so the Q is why is it doing this to me and how can I get the hole thing back? I can't even install XP now due to a stop screen and stuff.
Please Help!!!!

 

[pmonett]

You are formatting the disk and every time you have less available disk space ?
That probably means that your disk is growing bad clusters.
Do you have a SMART-enabled BIOS ? If so, activate it. If the disk is also SMART-enabled, you will get a notification of impending failure from the BIOS when you boot.
There is nothing you can do to "recover" the lost space. Faulty clusters are flagged by Format so that they are no longer used, since they are not reliable. Basically, what this means is that you are going to have to replace the disk in a not-to-distant future.
Back up you essential files and start saving money.

Pascal.

 

[Jontmke]

Well, you know this could also be the way that data is referenced. The hard drive makers say the have a 40GB drive. Which to them is 40,000,000,000 bytes. But computers count bytes differently.
While computers report data differently:
HARD drive specs:1000 bytes = 1 KiloByte | 1000 KB = 1 MegaByte | 1000 MB = 1 GigaByte

Computer Specs: 1024 bytes = 1 KiloByte | 1024 KB = 1 MegaByte | 1024 MB = 1 GigaByte

So, you never see the total amount that your hard drive says it has. The 38 GB that your computer is stating is actually about right for a formatted drive. This is a big issue with the hard core nerds. And when you get up to 200GB drives it makes a big difference, like 20GB.



Jon

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. (Bertrand Russell)

 

[olderthandirt]

Check the actual size. Go to My Computer double click to open the window. Right click on the hard drive "C" or "D" what ever, and look at the listed size. Ususally capacity will have two sizes the listed byte count and the standard count as described by (jontmke).

 

[jcmahal]

how do you format??

may be you need ot do a low level format to clean off and FAT contents and other thigns that might be consuming HD room. try to see pa

 

[Intown]

I do a standard format by fdisk delete part. etc.... Now I was told about a low format and told it works but to never do it and also only older bois are able to do so. How do I find out if I can do a low format and how to go about doing a low format...?

 

[TekTippy4U]

Go to the Drive Manu.'s website...and download the utility specific to your drive model...
Some OEM Restoration cd's come with that drives LLF utility on it , usually called "write zeros to disk" or "zero fill"

On another note....Are you running Scandisk in between formats....?you should do a surface scan, and there are better utilities out there that'll do a better job than MS scandisk

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Also;
On still yet another note.If your stop errors refer to Windows Product Activation...see this

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[paparazi]

jontmke points out the basic facts about hard drives.
At this moment in my PC I have two Seagate Barracuda's,
One, a 40gig that reads:
formatted 40,015,953,920 bytes but 37.2gig, the other is a 60gig, that reads: 60,019,834,880 bytes but just 55.8gig
So you see I've lost 4.2gig on the 60!! well not really as you can see, thats how it should be.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[TekTippy4U]

Hey!
These guys are correct.....Intown.....here are a couple of my small Partitions
6,953,168,896 bytes yet 6.47 gig...lost 1/2 a gig
2,142,543,872 bytes yet 1.99 gig...lost 143 Megs

thanx jontmke and paparazi and olderthandirt
I actually thought that was the case when I first saw this post....however i felt to give LLF info cause it was asked.
stars all around

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[TekTippy4U]

However gentlemen/ladies, I must say that I used to have a 9.1 gig drive that I fdisked and formatted a bunch of times before I realized I had my LLF utility on my SysRest CDs and it wasn't till I used it, did I noticed my full capacity come back.
So, a combo of both..? maybe

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[Intown]

Ok So I am reading just over 40,000,000,000 @38.2 Gigs so yes I am close I would think. I am still getting slower everytime I format the hard drive.Now I have scandisc once or twice during the fdisk and format but it comes up with no errors,the stop error I get is bad check sum and has to do with the shadowing or something ...So in order to do one really good format and hopefully fix most of my problems what is the best way? I would like to run 2000 or XP again nothing against 98 SE.

 

[TekTippy4U]

IMO..go to Maxtors wesite and download Maxblast? i think it's called...their LLF utility for checking your drives for errors.....OR maybe on the install CD that came with System.
You see every drive made has some bad sectors when manufactured, and they get marked as defective/bad... and the proper LLF utility contains the code to communicate with your SPECIFIC drive controller directly,rather than using the BIOS to talk to the drive....any other will "f" it up....

Just make sure its the right utility for YOUR drive MODEL..
I guess NTFS would be the way to go with XP or 2K..

I don't know why your getting slower every time.....but I guess the LLF will properly mark the bad sectors as bad....and not let any writing be done on them....from the getgo...

Then i'd install from CD directly..no floppy...set the BIOS to "Boot from CD rom" as first Boot device, then HDD, then floppy

TT4U

Notification:
These are just "my" thoughts....and should be carefully measured against other opinions....I try very hard to impart correct info at all times.

 

[Intown]

Ok so I went and got the Maxblast 3 it will do both fat and ntfs, It will ask you what OS you will be installing and do its thing... I looked around on the site to find out if I do it after I fdisk and format and then on restart boot to maxblast disc first... But could not find any info..TT4U have you used this program before? And thanks to everyone for the GREAT Info & Help....

 

[paparazi]

Maxblast 3 will allow you to carry out a S.M.A.R.T test on the drive effectively checking every factory parimeter and reporting any found errors, manufactures generally won't accept an RMA on a drive untill this test is carried out so it's worth using on a suspect drive.
Martin

Replying helps further our knowledge, without comment leaves us wondering.

 

[Intown]

So I can do that without wiping the hard drive. never had to do one so it is new to me, I downloaded the maxblast and the powermax, when put onto a diskette they make bootable disc....I also downloaded the tech procedure on both programs....But worst comes to worse, at least I will learn something out of it... LOL

 

[bcool]

For Maxtor drives, doesn't their Powermax 4.06 utility do the same in terms of LLF and checking all SMART attributes?