HD Upgrade Disaster!

LoTwan

System:

Dell Inspiron 9400 laptop running Windows XP
80G HD
2048 Mb RAM

I decided, on a whim, on Wednesday to buy myself a new HD (am sick of being told that the 80G was full etc). Went to a reputable Irish site that I have bought from before & picked myself up a nice 320G 2.5" drive and a 2.5" enclosure for the 80G (nothing wrong with the old drive, just too small). Arrived in the post yesterday (nice work An Post) and I swapped them over.

Ran the XP installation disk & saw the full 320G. Decided (on another whim) to make a 100G (approx) partition on the drive (don't ask me why... if I could go back there I would and not get myself into this predicament in the first place). Went ahead and installed XP (without issue). When it was all installed I checked: the partition wasn't showing & the C drive was 220G (approx).

I decided this morning that I would boot from the XP disk again (in an attempt to get rid of the missing partition and regain the missing space) but a combination of factors led me to simply install XP again.

This is where I plead my case for leniency! I am a normally intelligent, technically minded, fairly PC literate woman who is currently 7.5 months pregnant and therefore not in full control of my mental faculties. I also have a 3.5 year old who likes to "help" with the laptop :rolleyes:

So... after the second install I find myself with 92G of visible space and NO IDEA where the other 228G are hiding. Needless to say I don't want to get busy building up the new XP installation while I am missing so much space but I simply can't think of how to get back the missing space.

I have swapped the drives again (so I am running XP off the 80G drive) so that the bigger drive is no longer the boot drive (it is in the enclosure now) but I am still only seeing 92G on it.

I accept that I am completely responsible for the mess that I am in... I just want to get out of it.

Can someone please help me?

pixbyjohn

when you partitioned the drive originally did you format the 100 gb partition??? or did you simply just create a 100 gig partition without formatting it.




http://www.fdisk.com/fdisk/HardDrive.htm


Table 1: Debug Script to Erase Hard-Disk Partition Table

---

Debug Enter Debug Comments
Prompts Commands

---

- A 100 Assemble from CS:0100.

nnnn:0100 INT 13 Call interrupt 13.

nnnn:0102 press the (nnnn in the segment address).
ENTER key

- RAX Replace AX register.

AX 0000

: 0301 Write on sector.

- RBX Replace BX register.

BX 0000

: 0200 Start from ES:200.

- F 200 L 200 0 We want to write zeros.

- RCX Replace CX register.

CX 0000

: 0001 Cylinder, 0, sector 1.

- RDX Replace DX register.

DX 0000

: 0080 First physical hard disk, head
0. (Substitute 0081 for this
entry if you are clearing the
table on the second physical
hard disk, 0082 if you are
clearing the third physical
hard disk, and so forth).

- P Proceed (Debug will display
several lines of information

LoTwan

I formatted the bigger section, not the 100G one.

M5

start
control panel
admin tools
computer managment
disk managment

look for an uninitialised/unformatted partition, initialize (if needed) and format,

that should work

LoTwan

M5... thanks for that. I tried it early yesterday and it is just showing up the 92G that I can see elsewhere.

I forgot to say last night that as far as the BIOS (which I have updated the drivers for) is concerned the drive is only 92G also.

pixbyjohn... thanks for the debug but I have no idea where to do it

Gadgetman496

Now that you have the larger drive in the enclosure, why not just format it totally.

Create a new 100GB partition & format that.

Then go back & format the remaining partition (250GB Approx)

Use NTFS for the format type.

Stick it back into the machine & install Windows on the 100GB partition.


Ps,

Wait until the junior technician is gone to bed

-

LoTwan

I am trying that now but what happens if I just end up with a formatted drive that is 92G?

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Ps,

Wait until the junior technician is gone to bed

-

Thankfully he wasn't actually helping at the time but he is a powerful distracting force It is a catch 22. The internal child makes me too tired in the evening and the external one distracts me during the day. My recommendation for myself is... don't do this type of thing when 7.5 months pregnant!

Gadgetman496

If you format the whole drive to NTFS there's no reason it won't be able to see it all.

There might be a need to initialise the drive or on of its partition.

First thing to do when you are finished formatting is to leave it in the enclosure & connected to your PC.

On your machine:

Click START

Right click MY COMPUTER

Choose MANAGE (form the available list)

Click on DISK MANAGEMENT (Lefthand pane)

Can you see the total drive space now? (Righthand pane)

Are all the stripes on the top of the Drive/Partition boxes blue or are any of them black?

-

LoTwan

As I expected I ended up with a formatted 92G drive.

The problem as I see it now is that my BIOS is only seeing 92G and until I get past that I am not going to be able to see the rest anywhere else.

So... how do I make the BIOS see the whole drive?

Ishindar

try reloading XP on the new HDD, during the install it will give u an option to delete partisions. just delete all your partitions and then it will give an option to format your HDD. After this just continue the new XP install and u should be sorted.

Gadgetman496

LoTwan wrote: »

As I expected I ended up with a formatted 92G drive.

The problem as I see it now is that my BIOS is only seeing 92G and until I get past that I am not going to be able to see the rest anywhere else.

So... how do I make the BIOS see the whole drive?

I know it's a laptop drive but it wouldn't have any jumpers onboard would it?

Can you link to the drive in question? What make & where did you purchase?

-

LoTwan

It is a Samsung HM320JI & I bought it from GoBeyond.

http://downloadcenter.samsung.com/content/UM/200704/20070419200445968_2.5_Install_Gudie_ENG_200704.pdf

I know how to get into the BIOS but I can't, for the life of me, figure out how to access the CMOS. And to add insult to injury I am now typing on the old laptop which is driving me mad!

LoTwan

Ishindar wrote: »

try reloading XP on the new HDD, during the install it will give u an option to delete partisions. just delete all your partitions and then it will give an option to format your HDD. After this just continue the new XP install and u should be sorted.

Thanks for the suggestion. Because the BIOS is only seeing the 92G, XP only shows the 92G. There are no other partitions to delete when I reinstall XP.

Gadgetman496

Is it possible the the BIOS has the HDD set to "Native IDE"?

Maybe you should download the SATA drivers & install them.

-

LoTwan

gadgetman496 wrote: »

Is it possible the the BIOS has the HDD set to "Native IDE"?

How do I figure that out?

Gadgetman496

LoTwan wrote: »

How do I figure that out?

Boot into the BIOS & check in there to see anywhere it referrs to the Hard Drive (HDD).

See if it set to IDE

There should be an option there to change it to SATA but you will need the Mobo's SATA drivers to install using the F6 option during the Windows XP install.

-