I lost 110 GB's - OY!

[dreamchaser]

Hey, I could sure use some help. I don't know much about Hard Drives, so please excuse the naive questions and lack of correct terminology (and idiot mistakes...).

I was partitioning a new 120GB 7200rpm IDE drive with Partition Magic 6.0 (the drive hadn't been formatted yet) and then (for some dumb reason) I interrupted the process when only about 8GB's had been partitioned. Then Windows 2000 told me that a 8GB partition had been created. Then (I don't know why) I formatted the partition (NTFS). Now my computer consistently tells me that this drive has only 8GB's on it. I wasn't able to do anything with the drive in partition Magic, so I stumbled onto Disk Management in Windows 2000. This allowed me to delete the partition so now the drive is listed as "unallocated" but I am still being told that there are only 8GB's on the drive (by Windows and Partition Magic). How can I get the rest of the 120 GB drive back?!

 

[KimLeece]

Try fdisk - best would be to boot from a floppy first if you can. Using fdisk, delete all the partitions that you can see and make new ones - then format them.

KimLeece.

 

[wolluf]

Is the bios seeing 120GB? (how old is bios?) Did partition magic see 120GB before you started format? (8GB is suspicious, as its one of the 'drive size limits'). Have you set jumpers correctly on drive? What service pack is your 2k running?

 

[dreamchaser]

Kim, I don't have a floppy. I have a CD.

How do I get into FDISK?

Wolluf, yes, Partition Magic originally saw 120GB. And the jumpers are set correctly (I put this drive in the place of another drive and matched the jumpers) I am running Service Pack 2 (Some people who have the same video editing set-up as I do have had trouble with SP3). And actually, it says my drive has 7.8GB - I was just rounding it off.

Where in the BIOS would I find the size of my drives? (As you can see, there is a lot I don't know about this stuff)

Thanks very much for your help.

 

[apex1x]

Do you have a floppy drive? ~Apex1x
Miller's Law:
You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.

 

[firewolfrl]

uninstall the drive do a full reboot then reinstall the drive. boot and press the "tab" button (works on some machines) press "pause" button after the drive posts. if the drive reads the full 120 gig then hit "return" to continue to boot .....if not call the manufacturer and RMA the drive.
its not worth the headache to keep a new drive with problems from the getgo.

 

[dreamchaser]

Apex1x - Yes, I do have a floppy drive. I was responding to the question of whether I had a floppy disk boot disk. I have a recovery CD.

Firewolfrl - Thanks for the advice. I did mention earlier that the disk originally said it had 120 GB. The problem now is that by interrupting the partitining process I have somehow tricked my computer into thinking the drive has only 8GB. That's my dilemma. I need to somehow get Windows to lee the entire drive. Somehow the hard drive was "marked" so that it is reading as a much smaller drive. There must be some way to fix this.

 

[apex1x]

Yes, there is a way to fix it.
You will have to boot up the computer off a floppy disk and run partition magic or even fdisk.
Make sure to delete all the current partition info.
You say you were running partition magic and interrupted it-did you run partition magic from DOS or Windows?
Create two rescue diskette with Partition Magic if you have not already and use those to manage your drive. ~Apex1x
Miller's Law:
You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.

 

[wolluf]

apex1x - why is fdisk going to see the whole drive when 2k's disk management (a more sophisticated partitioning tool) is telling him its 7.8GB?

Dreamchaser - firewolfrl's advice to RMA the drive is good. Small question - are you telling whole story here? How exactly did you interrupt PM's partitioning?
'I interrupted the process when only about 8GB's had been partitioned. Then Windows 2000 told me that a 8GB partition had been created. Then (I don't know why) I formatted the partition (NTFS)'

After you interrupted PM, you say Windows told you 8GB partition had been created - then you formatted it (what did you format it with - PM, Disk Management?).

 

[dreamchaser]

I already have a couple rescue diskettes that I mad in PM a while ago, before I lost my OS hard drive a while back. I now have a different system drive (not the one I am having trouble with). Can I use these, or do they need to be made from my current set-up?

And I was running PM in Windows.

 

[apex1x]

There should be two rescue diskettes, and they should work on your problematic computer as well.

I've had fdisk recognize drive problems in the past while windows doesn't as the windows setup can be buggy.

I wouldn't use fdisk unless you have to though-definatly go with Partition magic. ~Apex1x
Miller's Law:
You can't tell how deep a puddle is until you step into it.

 

[KimLeece]

dreamchaser -

You can create a boot disk using the following link:-

http://home.pacbell.net/dbk4297/fdiskformat.html

Make sure that you also update the fdisk.exe from this page otherwise fdisk will have problems seeing a larger disk than 64Gb.

I agree with apex1x that using Partion Magic from floppy is a better way to go - as Partition Magic boots into DOS first. I have found that sometimes these kind of programs work better from a DOS environment (My Partition Magic wouldn't work from Windows ME at all - but works fine from it's own boot disks).
It would seem that when it comes to this kind of disk management sometimes - the simpler the better (personally I still think that the best operating system Bill ever made was DOS 5 - in it's own time - but that probably just gives away my age)
Good Luck

KimLeece.

 

[firewolfrl]

if you need a bootdisk goto

http://www.bootdisk.com/

or
use this link
"New Microsoft Fdisk For Hard Drives Over 64 Gig"

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q263044

 

[dreamchaser]

Hi Wolluf - No, I'm not hiding anything! ] I interrupted the process by either clicking cancel in the Partition Magic dialogue window or hitting Esc (Actually, I did both - because of the process that was going on, the system was a little sluggish, so I tried one then the other, but I can't remember which I pushed first. When the system finally responded, it stopped the partitining process after only creating a small partition, even though I had originally chosen to create a partition including the whole drive.

I believe I formatted it with Windows by right-clicking on the drive and choosing "format."

Part of my problem is that I was impatient and started hitting buttons instead of waiting. [

 

[dreamchaser]

Wow - thanks to all! I'll chew on what you all said and try some things and get back to you in a couple days (I'm leaving town for a few days) Hopefully, using the disk is simple enough and I won't get lost navigating or somehow delete things that I shouldn't...


Merry Christmas!

Dreamchaser

 

[wolluf]

There's always the 'low-level' format or binary zero fill using the drive manufacturers utility (most have one on their website) which should wipe out your partition table & return disk to state it was in when you got it (perhaps!). You could then try again - there's usually diagnostic utility included or on same page - you could also check out drive & see if its failing & needs returning.

 

[dreamchaser]

Well, everyone, the saga is over.

I used the Partition Magic Rescue Disk to boot and then PM recognized all 120 GB (well, actually 114) of the disk. Then I tried to partition it using the Rescue Disk and it took forever to do just a little, so I took a risk and canceled the partition and deleted what it had done and then booted in Windows and opened Partition Magic and it still recognized the entire drive. So I tried to partition and format again, and it all went very smoothly.

Thanks to all the very helpful, friendly humanoids on this forum! Excellent and timely advice. Merry Christmas!

Dreamchaser

 

[uranium235]

I suggest fdisking just get a command.com file and a fdisk.exe file from a runing computer {go to shut down and restart in msdos mode find command.com and type copy {path to file] a: be sure to have a blank disk ready in drive a:
reboot with the disk you made in the a:drive and at the a: drive prompt type fdisk then type chose 3 and then 1 to delete ALL of the partition} O ya be sure to enable large disk suport.

 

[hotfusion]

And as a final note - can I extol the virtues of creating TWO partitions - one for the operating system and applications (say 6 Gig?) and a separate one (the remainder) for the files you create?
This enables you to format and re-install without touching your 'files' partition. Can save a lot of hassle and worry if anything goes wrong with your install.
(I've never been able to understand why shop-supplied computers aren't set up this way....)
My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my rather limited knowledge. Andy.