Laptop HD - capacity question

[richardhowell]

I've just purchased a 2nd hand Dell laptop (from ebay) which has a Samsung HM160HI disc. This has a 160gb size. But when I view its properties (Explore, right click on C drive, Properties) it appears to have only 80 gb. Is this something to do with partitioning? If so how can I reclaim the other 80gb?
Can someone explain please.

 

[Freestone]

Assuming the operating system is XP, what does Disk Management show about the drive and its partitioning?

Start, Run..., diskmgmt.msc

 

[vacunita]

It is probably partition, does explorer show another drive letter? i.e D: that is not a CD-rom or DVD drive?

Follow Freestones advice and look in disk management.

If it is another partition, then you'll need a third party utility to get the rest of the drive back. I would check that the drive is indeed 160Gb. Are you completely sure its a HM160HI and not a HM080GI? in which case its capacity would be only 80GB.






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Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[richardhowell]

It came with Vista loaded.
No, there's no other drive. D: is the DVD RW.
I've checked in Device Manager and it's definitely HM160HI

 

[vacunita]

O.K. Last resort would be to check Disk Management, and see what is says about the missing 80GB.

In the Start Menu's search box type "Computer Management"

To bring up the Management Console. From there you can select the Disk Management branch under Storage.



----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[richardhowell]

Yep. 75.92gb is unallocated. Point is, can I allocate it? Eg. create an E drive with this space.

 

[vacunita]

Sure you can. Right click on the unallocated space, it should give you the option of creating a partition, and then formatting it.


----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.

 

[richardhowell]

Many thankyou's. It's formatting as we speak.
Regards
Richard Howell

 

[vacunita]

Glad I could help.

----------------------------------
Ignorance is not necessarily Bliss, case in point:
Unknown has caused an Unknown Error on Unknown and must be shutdown to prevent damage to Unknown.