I have lost harddrive space while attempting to install XP

[Drakyn]

I will try to keep this as short as possible.

First, I built a new system, and unfortunately the motherboard had problems. I could not get through a complete install of XP without it hanging up. I tried to install XP repeatedly, many times going through the installation by deleting all partitions then creating a new smaller partition to install XP on. I have 2 Seagate 250 HD's. I only wanted to install XP on a 40 GB partition saving the rest of the HD to be partitioned out after I got running.

Needless to say, I sent that motherboard back and got a more reliable one and installed XP within 10 minutes, flawlessly.

Currently, I have both HD's hooked up, SATA. I can see them both with MAXBLAST which I used to partition the second harddrive. Now, MAXBLAST shows that my First Harddrive, that contains the O/S, is ~250 GB, like it should. But remember, I partitioned it to install the O/S on a 40GB partition. When I double click on My Computer THAT is all it shows - 40GB of Total Space. Where is my other 210GB ???

Just a few notes.

- When I was first prompted in the Windows Installation where I wanted to put the O/S, the 250GB of space was all there. This was before I created a partition for 40GB. AFter I created the partition, it showed THAT partition and also the remaining 210 GB.

- During my troubles with the first motherboard, and repeatedly deleting partitions and creating a new one, I noticed at times that my HD Total Space was dropping by 40 GB. At one time, I had 130GB to work with. Coincedence??? It never dropped to Zero though. I can only guess that somehow during this time, when I was deleting partitions, it wasn't actually Deleting them, but just erasing it maybe, and moving on with what space I had left. Either way, on the final successful installation, I had 250 GB to work with.

Any thoughts on how I can get the other 210GB to show up in XP so I can use it?

 

[Freestone]

What does Disk Management show? Start, Run..., diskmgmt.msc

My guess is that you never created a second partition on the drive so there is 210GB of free space left waiting to be used.

 

[wolluf]

Would agree with freestone - and also why use maxblast to partition rather than XP's own tools (disk management)?

 

[Drakyn]

I use Maxblast because I like it and have had success with it before and it also happens to be made by the manufacturer of my HD's....Seagate/Maxtor....figured I couldn't go wrong with that....

I just talked to a friend of mine and yes you are correct. The remaining space just hasn't been recognized by Windows because I did not partition the remaining space when I installed XP. He also recommended going into the admin tools in the Control panel and then to Disk Management and seeing if I can manipulate it from there. If all else fails, I will boot from my XP disc again and create the partitions from there as if I was going to do a clean install.

Thanks for the replies.

 

[Freestone]

Be aware that if you plan to use FAT32, XP won't format a partition greater than 32GB, though it can support them. You will need a 3rd party tool if you want a FAT32 partition greater than that size.

 

[Drakyn]

I use NTFS. Not a problem there....