Windows only see's 2gb of my harddrive

[Guest_imported]

I recently formatted my hard drive and re-installed all my software.

Later i realised that windows only thinks my hard drive is 2gb (it actually is 5gb) - How do i cure this.

Also
what is the best procedure to use when formatting a hard drive and reinstalling an operating system.
without the need for dos and cd rom drivers.

please help.

Thanks......

 

[CitrixEngineer]

You probably formatted the disk using an older version of fdisk and/or format.com. I would guess that this is an old version of Windows 95.

If you're talking about Windows 9x (I assume you are!), then you will need a bootdisk with a recent version of fdisk.exe and format.com.

Using fdisk, create the partition(s) to the size you require, then reformat the drive.

If you can make your CD-ROM drive bootable via the BIOS, and your Windows 95 CD supports this, then you won't need a DOS driver.

If you can connect the computer to a LAN (requires a boot disk with DOS NIC drivers), then you won't need a DOS CD-ROM driver.

Put it this way, Windows 9x depends on DOS.

Otherwise, you need one. There are several sites which provide an image of such a disk, or I (or one of the many gurus on this site) can provide detailed instructions.

I hope this helps - good luck!

 

[Guest_imported]

Thanks for that.

you were corect i am running windows 95.

Is there a way to recover my 3gb that's gone missing without the need to re-format.

 

[CitrixEngineer]

You could use fdisk - or Partition Magic is probably more helpful - and create a new partition, which would then have a new drive letter attached to it and be treated as a new drive.

To get the whole 5Gb to be seen as one complete drive, though, you need to blat the disk and reformat, I'm afraid.

Hope this helps

 

[Guest_imported]

cheers for that,

I'll have a go when i can lay my hands on partion magic.

one more problem for you now.

I have a dell optiplex gx100 and since formatting my usb ports cannot be found.

Is there some magical mystery to get them up and running

 

[CitrixEngineer]

Windows 98 should automatically detect and configure USB ports - unless they've been dsiabled in the BIOS (on a DELL, I doubt it!),

Early versions of Windows 95 will not. You will know, because later versions have "USB Support" printed on the CD.

Hope this helps

 

[quadt]

To add to CitrixEngineer's answer, if you are using Win95 with USB support it won't add the USB support automatically. After you've installed windows you need to run a seperate USB supplement. The supplement is on the windows 95/w USB support disc. Just browse the CD to the directory "Other", then to the directory "USB" (ex. D:\other\usb). View the readme and follow the directions.

Good luck
quat

 

[alex304]

I would not use partition magic. It is pretty good but I have seen it loose data during fat conversions. Not very often, but it happens. Go to the HDD Manufacturer's website and dowload the disk manager. You will have to repartition your drive so back up what you want to keep. Follow the instructions and this should allow you to use the entire 5GB of HDD space.

Alex

 

[teknoguy]

just to recap on everyone elses comments. windows must be partitioned to FAT32 to reconize drives bigger 2GB. make sure to select the correct configuration in FDISK. what version of windows are you running- A,B,C, or D?? what type of hard drive is it? usually HD manufacturers will put a software utility on there website for enabling HD's larger then 2 gigs. also set the HD in the bios to Auto. If there is no auto capabilities then set it to LBA mode.

 

[ShaithisDanoveur]

I've used Partition Magic on hundreds of drives in enterprise environments and never had a failure personally.

If you follow the directions it won't matter - step 1: ALWAYS BACK UP PRIOR TO USING UTILITIES THAT MODIFY YOUR HARD DRIVE.

Now before switching to FAT32, you must be using Win95 OSR2 or higher for FAT32 support. Nothing worse than upgrading to FAT32 to find out the OS doesn't support it.

The actual upgrade process is fairly quick. If you're using Partition Magic, do it in 2 rounds. First, convert from Fat16 to FAT32. Once finished with this, and you see it's working fine, use PM again to extend your drive from the 2G it's at now to its full size.

If you're planning on upgrading to a newer windows and don't need anything from the old one (including mail and what-not) I'd just install cleanly, repartitioning and reformatting the drive in the process.

 

[sehiser]

As far as your USB...

Are you using win95 A B or C?

A needs to have a service pack slapped on top of it for your USB to be recognized.

Win95B has a subdirectory on the install CD under "other" where you can find a file called usbsupp.exe (I think that's the name), run this file and your USB problem should be fixed after it reboots.

Scott