Lost HDD Space

[Larryf01]

I just found your forum and hope you can help. My son recently "upgraded" :confused: my computer. He also put Windows XP on it, then went in the Navy (not available now for some time). Unfortunately, I HATED XP. It took me two weeks to figure out how to get it off and get W98SE back on. Problem is, I have a 19GB hard drive, but the computer now thinks it is a 1.99GB. It won't recognize the other 17GB. When I run fdisk, it shows only one partition (Drive C). It shows no other partitions, and I cannot get it to realize there is still another 17GB there. I suspect there is a partition, and that the missing 17GB is formatted in NTFS. If so, I'm in trouble. I've been told I will need a 3rd party partition manager to recover it, but have also been told it is not a program for novices to mess with and that it should be used by experienced users. Does any of this sound right? Any comments would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance. Best...Larry

[Dodge]

When you run Fdisk it is only showing 1.99gig right?

Do you have the windows XP disk?

As for the rest. It might be easier on you if you got someone to do it. (its always easier to get someone else to do something) But it is not needed.

btw, Welcome to Cybertechhelp.

[HKEd]

Hi Larry...it sure sounds like you chose NOT to "enable large disk support" during the fdisk. If so, only 2GB will be seen. Try going through the fdisk process again, accepting the large disk support. I find fdisk to be the easiest to use, but Ranish Partition Manager (http://www.ranish.com/part/) (freeware) offers more, although it is a little complicated at first. PowerQuest's PartitionMnager - payware (is that a term, or have I just invented it? ;)) - is best of all, but try fdisk again first.

[Larryf01]

Thanks so much to both for the welcome and the replies. To answer questions first, no I do not have the XP disk. My son (trying to be helpful) just put in XP Pro from his own disk. He has it packed away somewhere at his mother's house, and I'd buy a new computer before I'd go there and ask her for anything :p

As for fdisk, yes I have checked it to enable large disk support. I have run fdisk several times and made sure it said yes to that every time.

I'm debating whether I could use a partition mgr. alone or if I'm getting in over my head to try. I'm afraid I could cause more harm than good if I do it wrong. Could be you are right....in this case it may be better to take it to someone else.

Anyway, thanks for the help. Any other thoughts would be appreciated before I do anything. BTW, I also have another problem no one else has been able to figure out. Will post that under a new thread :)

Best....Larry

[Larryf01]

Well, I'm making some progress (I think). I downloaded the Ranish Partition Manager recommended. When I went to the first screen, it shows the partition. It is the first time since this started I can even SEE that there is still another 17+ GB section on this disk. Thing is, now I'm not sure what to do with it. As with the others, the Readme file cautions against novices using it.

So, I have posted the information displayed by the Ranish screen. Thing is, I couldn't fit it into this forum in a way it could be understood, and I can't do an attachment here from my Word Processor. The best quick answer I could come up with was to create a new page on my website and put a link to it directly from the index page. Hope that is OK. It was the only way I could think to show you what Ranish said. If there is another way I should do it, please advise. If not, you may see the results at http://www.geocities.com/larryf01/ On the Index page, just click Ranish Partition Manager. That will go directly to the Ranish page and bypass the site. Thanks for all your help!! Best...Larry

[Larryf01]

I forgot to mention that this site has an annoying popup ad on the right on each page. Just scroll to the bottom and click twice on Close (don't double-click....use two seperate clicks). This will close the popup window immediately :p

[Dodge]

It appears he set up 3 Primary Dos partitions.

In Partition manager left click once on the 17gig partition to highlight it. Go to the top and select Partition, then Format. You need to format the 17gig partition. Format it using Fat32. Windows 98 will not recognize NTFS format. You should then be able to view the rest of your hard drive.

Now, if you want to combine the 2 gig and 17gig partitions, you will need to either Pay for Partition manager or Fdisk your drive again.

I recomend Fdisk. Delete all partitions and create new ones (if you decide to join them together.


Evidently when you Fdisked the drive, you or he created the 17gig partition but didn't format it. Thats why it shows up as Unused.

[Larryf01]

Thanks so much for the assist, Dodge :) One last question:

Can I do this without having to reformat the entire disk, including the existing 2GB? Right now, it's working pretty good and I would just like to add the 17GB to it. Sorry if this is a "dumb" question, but partitioning is a whole new world to me :p

Thanks again. Best...Larry

[Dodge]

You can format the 17gig using the program and it wont hurt the existing 2gig at all.

If you want to Combine the 17 in with the 2gig then you will need to purchase either Partition manger or Partition Magic in order to do that. Fdisking the drive means you will have to get rid of everything on the drive.

[Larryf01]

Well, Dodge, I think you've almost got me there!! :D Using the partition manager, I have successfully reformatted the "lost" section to FAT32. Now, when I run fdisk, it shows the 2nd partition (it shows as "Drive D:"). Guess I'm down to 2 questions.

1. My CD ROM is listed as Drive D (writer is Drive E). Should I change those to Drives E and F?

2. When I run fdisk now, I still do not get the option to "Use entire disk space," or something like that. I get 4 options. One of them is to delete a Primary DOS partition. When I select 2, it gives me the warning that all data will be lost. Of course, there is no data on it right now. Should I just delete partition 2? If I do that, what will be the status of the 17GB that is on it now?

Thanks, too, for your patience with me :) I guess it can be taxing to try working with someone who doesn't really know much, but I really DO appreciate your help with this!! Best...Larry

[Larryf01]

I forgot (again) to post info. When I ran fdisk, this is the info it gave about partition 2:

Partition - D:2
Status - (Blank)
Type - Pri DOS
Voume Label - (Blank)
Mbytes - 17422
System - Unknown
Usage - 89%

If any more info I can give, I'll get it right away. Thanks Again...

[Dodge]

Originally posted by Larryf01
Thanks, too, for your patience with me :) I guess it can be taxing to try working with someone who doesn't really know much, but I really DO appreciate your help with this!! Best...Larry


Larry, I just want to let you know. I'm not a computer tech. I've never been to school to work on these things. I started out about 1 1/2 year ago learning on these things. I joined a board like this one and set down and started learning. I just knew how to turn on a computer.

We're here to help you try to fix these things by yourself and save you $50-$85 and hour. We dont mind a bit.

The only bad thing is that it may take a few days to get all the problems worked out. So it is you being patient that helps.....


On to your other questions.

Number 1... Windows should detect the drive and assign a drive letter to it. You dont need to rearrange anything. That is once everything is setup correctly.

Number 2. When you Run Fdisk it will ask you if you want to Enable Large disk Space. But since you have 3 Primary Dos partitions already setup, it may not ask you this. I haven't ran Fdisk in quite sometime so I can't remember exactly.


Now with a question. When you boot into Windows 98, you still cannot see the 17gig partition right?

I'm thinking you are going to have to either purchase the Partition Manager or Partition Magic, or backup what you need and Fdisk the Hard drive and delete all Partitions and create a new one.

[Larryf01]

Hmmmm...The Partition Manager is showing 3 partitions:

#1 shows as Pri, unused and is only 31KB
#2 shows as Pri 1, 2+GB, and is the one the system is running on
#3 shows as Pri, Unused and is the 17GB in question

What would happen if I just deleted #1? If that was gone, there would be only 2 partitions left and maybe I could get the option to use entire disk? Whattya think? Thanks...Larry

[Dodge]

No that wouldn't get you access to the entire disk. The only way to do that is to use a Partitioning program to join them together or to Fdisk the drive and delete all three and create a New Primary Partition using 100% of the drive.

He may have used a Boot manager for the dual boot system. That could be why he set up the small 1st Pri partition.

Unless someone else has any other Ideas, I only see two ways that you can join the 3 partitions into one partition and make things work. One will allow you to keep Windows 98 intact and not bother anything, that is to use the Partitioning program to Combine the 3.

The other is to Fdisk. Getting rid of Windows 98 all together, deleting all partitions and creating Only 1 Primary partition using 100% of the drives space.

[Larryf01]

After what I've been through with this "thing" today, I think I'll take the rest of the night off (it is now 11:15 p.m. here, and I've been up since 4:30 this morning). I just now got back online. One of the drivers caused a problem, and the only thing I could do was to reformat and start all over. Just now got all the basics back in, and only been online about 5 minutes. I'm just tired of it for today. Thanks so much to all for the replies and for your help and patience. If nothing else, I've learned a lot :D

Have to work tomorrow, so it will be tomorrow evening (here...Pacific Daylight Time) before I can do any more. For now, I have a 2GB system with a modem which stops a lot, but at least it's working :)

Catch ya later!! Best....Larry

[jtdoom]

Hi Larry

I shall read about that that modem problem later on.

at this time, I am inclined to ask you to consider a real cleanup of these partitions

you would have to provide a few details so we can tell you what tools to get, and then do this whithout you having leftovers from XP in MBR

two tools, nice and small
dug_id and wipeout
http://www.lurkhere.com/~nicefiles/index.html

dug_id would get details about make of drive
(that is, if you don't know make and model, and do not want to open case to look at the hard disk)

this would enable us to steer you to the drive manufactor tools that can partition and format a drive in minutes... AFTER you used wipeout.

another tool, made from the windows CDROM, is a bootfloppy
you should make one by running
tools\mtsutil\fat32ebd\fat32ebd on the cdrom, and pop a floppy in when it asks.
(whatever is on it will be overwritten.)

XP can leave weird things on a hard disk, and I know maxblast (for maxtor) can report wildly erroneous things when it looks at a drive after XP had been used on it.

wipeout just erases the partition table.
it's real fast...
and yes, that means all data is then innacessible, but it gives you a clean slate.

two giga can fill up real fast
looks like your drive is 20 giga unformatted
(roughly 19 formatted)

my preferences would be lilke six giga primary
rest extended, and then split extended in two by choosing 50 percent for first logical, and rest for second logical.
you would then have three hdriveletters, and they would all be under the slack treshhold

this is up to you.
five giga and rest for data would not be bad either...

the steps I would propose are like this
get info on drive
get drive manufactor tools
create drivetools
make that EBD floppy
put wipeout.exe on EBD (extract it to floppy)

boot from ebd
wipeout c: /np
reboot from drivetools floppy
do the deeds and divide and conquer.
it would ask for a system floppy, give it the EBD
when done, reboot

you are ready for setup, with no remnants of XP, no compatibility mode, and a clean slate,

I know, it sounds easy to ME.....

you decide.
you can take your time...
we may even figure out what is wrong with that modem by then.