Hard drive showing incorrect size

[CSektor]

Hi,

I have a PC that I dual-boot with NT Server 4.0 and Red Hat Linux 7.2. Just recently I have decided to wipe everything clean because I wanted to install some new stuffs. My hard drive's capacity is 10GB.

What is really bizarre now is if I boot the PC using the Red Hat CDs, the Disk Druid partition manager shows the disk capacity as 10GB (correct). But if I boot the PC using the boot disks I created from Partition Magic 7.0 (or fdisk for that matter), it shows the actual capacity as 2.1 GB (incorrect).

I can't remember what I did to stuff things up, but does anybody has any idea what is causing this and how would I be able to restore my hard drive to its original size? Has never come across this problem before, so it got me stumped at the moment. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,

CS

 

[wolluf]

What size does the bios see it as (usually on POST screen)? 2.1GB is 'suspicious' as its one of the size barriers for hard disks (presume fdisk showed correct size originally).

 

[CSektor]

Hi,

The BIOS shows the correct size when I do a hard disk auto-detect.

CS

 

[wolluf]

So, using fdisk - removing existing partitions and creating new one - only allows 2.1GB for new one? (did you run fdisk /mbr to restore standard windows boot disk)? Try this partitioning tool

http://www.lpacomputers.telinco.co.uk/pdisk.exe

see what it thinks.

 

[cdogg]

Partitions formatted in FAT16 have a 2GB limit in size. Perhaps fdisk/PM 7.0 is seeing it as FAT16 for some reason? It could have something to do with the mbr as wolluf mentioned.

If the drive is still empty, I suggest re-formatting.
~cdogg

"The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources."
- A. Einstein