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Correct Hard Drive size not being displayed

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m99wacko

Technical User
Feb 5, 2001
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Hi,
I recently bought a 20GB hard drive and installed Windows 98 on it but now when I go into my computer to see the drive (C:\)size it says 1.99GB. If anyone knows what or how to correct this please help..
 
you have incorrectly partitioned your hard drive. from MS_DOS prompt run fdisk. this is the program which at the beginning you set the hard drives settings ( say 2 partitions of 10gig). it sounds like you are using FAT16, this only supports up to 2 gig. if you have FAT32 ( win98 does) then you should be able to create a big extended partition to use up the rest of the hard drive space

that is : c: 2gig
d: 18 gig

again use fdisk to increase the size

Rob
If in doubt get the Ball Pein Hammer out
 
Rfeenie makes a good point, you are most likely running fat16, but if you fdisk your drive you WILL lose all your data. Get partition Magic switch file systems and extend your partitions if you want to save your data. If it's a fresh install and you dont mind reinstalling then I would fdisk.

Alex
 
Another thought, make sure your bios is detecting the drive correctly. Older bios version may not be able to detect a 20 GB drive. If this is the case you may need to update your bios. As well, you can still run fdisk without actually partitioning your drive. If it shows that you are not using 100 % of the drive or that there are more than one partition, then Partition magic is the way to go. Very easy to use, convert your file system to fat32 and extend the partition.

Hope this helps,
Computerguy
 
TAmco,

you can run fdisk without deleting everything, i stated an extended partition could be made, after all you can only do this one a primary partition is in place. If oyur BIOS does not see the drive as a 20Gig you can download some disk manager software from the hard drive manufacturers, this WILL delete everything though. fdisk and disk manager are free, partition magic costs aboot £30. If in doubt get the Ball Pein Hammer out
 
My problem may be similar to this one but I not so sure about the suggested resolution. I have a Win98 pc with a 6GB harisk partitioned into three 2GB partitions. Additionally, there is an internal 100MB Zip drive
configured as a Generic Hard Type 2 (Device Manager) and a CDROM. I opted for the Large Partition but I am only able to see 8033MB (7.82GB) after FDISK and Format.

Question:How do I get this Win98 SE to recognize the other 32GB on this new hard disk?
 
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