A Hard Drive Problem

200motels

Fixing a Sony Viao Laptop for a friend as it was in a loop so wouldn't boot into windows 7, so I did a clean install and while installing, the hard drive was only showing 40gb even though it's a 500gb hard drive, so I installed away and when finished I ran a few bits of software to see where the rest of the space had gone and it's hidden and broken up into 12 fat32 partitions, I've searched and searched the web for a solution on how to get back the full space and to make it NTFS and can't find anything on it, so any ideas of how it could have happened and how to fix it, if it's possible to fix it at all.

PropJoe10

If you can get into Windows, go to Start >> Run, type Diskmgmt.msc, and hit Enter. It'll bring you to the disk management utility. You should be able to delete partitions there as required.

thenightrider

For a start go in to the windows disk management tool and see what you can see let us know or take a screen shot and we will take it from there.

200motels

thenightrider wrote: »

For a start go in to the windows disk management tool and see what you can see let us know or take a screen shot and we will take it from there.

In disk management the only drive showing up is the 40gb, none of the FAT32 partitions are showing up, I ran easeus partition and the same result, it has be baffled. I even booted into a Gparted CD and that's showing the same.

thenightrider

Download ubuntu and see if it can see the missing partitions http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop

Its one of those problems that its very hard to try to sort out on less you are in front of the pc just trying a load of different things. Ive had problems like this in the past and have managed to sort them out but i cant remember of hand how.

Put gparted on a usb or cd and wipe everything..

200motels

I'll try that.

200motels

I've tried the above but still no joy it's still only showing 40gb.

wexie

200motels wrote: »

I ran a few bits of software to see where the rest of the space had gone and it's hidden and broken up into 12 fat32 partitions

What bits of software? So you've been able to see the partitions. Can the software that's seeing the partitions not delete them?

On occasion you could have a drive where the capacity has been limited (usually by the manufacturer), generally these can be restored to full capacity. Doesn't sound like that's what you're facing though?

What happened to the laptop previously? As in why are you rebuilding it?

Forgot to ask, what brand / type HDD is it?

advertsfox

200motels wrote: »

I've tried the above but still no joy it's still only showing 40gb.

Does this laptop have a 12 in 1 multimedia card reader? What you may have seen as partitions could have just been the 12 empty slots for pending memory cards.



As to why the drive is only showing at 40GB is interesting, can we see a screenshot of the disk management screen please?

Did you delete the FAT partitions and the available 40GB to which will result in an unallocated space the full capacity of the drive and then create a new partition to that value in Ntfs..

sausagehead

Try using seatools to check that the harddrive is ok. as the computer was looping, it maybe dying!

ZENER

From the current Windows installation:

Open a command prompt in Windows : -

At a command line type:

Diskpart <enter>

list disk <enter>

If there is only one physical drive in the machine and a CD-ROM drive then you should see just 2 devices listed.
Identify the hard drive from the list - let's just say it's listed as "Disk 1". Type :

select disk 1 <enter>

list partition <enter>

You'll get a list of all the partitions on the drive. Does it show any of the extra partitions ?

The following assumes you have a Windows 7 DVD to install from.

DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU ARE BOOTING FROM A RECOVERY PARTITION !!

Alternatively you can boot from the Windows 7 media and instead of the big INSTALL button click the Repair Your Computer link on the bottom left of the window.

Select the Installation you want to fix from the next window. From the next window select the bottom option Command Prompt.

Type:

Diskpart <enter>

list disk <enter>

select disk X <X = the number of your hard disk from the list disk command> <enter>

clean <enter>

CLEAN will remove all partitioning information from the drive by over-writing the partition info - adding [all] to the command will zero the whole drive though DBAN is probably better for this as a last resort) On large disks - clean [all] - can take hours or even days but if you start the command and let it run for say 5 minutes then press CTRL + C the clean will stop but should have done enough to destroy any partition info.

Now to create a partition:

If you're installing Windows 7 Home versions then you only require 1 partition, Ultimate will require 2 partitions - the first smaller partition is for Bitlocker which isn't part of the Home editions of Windows 7).

For Windows Home editions:

create partition primary <enter> (This will create one big partition on the drive.)

list partition <enter>

It should list one large partition of the full size of the drive.

exit <enter> To leave Diskpart.

If it's worked then you should have the entire drive back and accessible to Windows. As mentioned Dariks Boot and Nuke - DBAN - could achieve the same but means downloading extra stuff and burning the disk etc. All you need is on the Windows DVD

Ken

200motels

I'm going to try all of the above, regarding the HDD make it's seagate, I rang my friend and asked was it playing up for a time and he said it was also he said he had never installed an anti-virus because I asked him did he have any viruses, as it stands Windows is working away on the 40gb hardrive which leaves him 13gb space left after all the updates, which is not much but at least it's working, but I'd say the hard drive has being corrupted in some way but how it was is a mystery.

sausagehead

If the laptop is less than 3 years old seagate will replace the harddrive if thats the problem. you can check the warranty of the drive on the seagate site, with the serial number of drive.

200motels

I've given up on it as I can't get hard drive back to full space. Thanks for help lads.

davo2001

200motels wrote: »

I've given up on it as I can't get hard drive back to full space. Thanks for help lads.

That's the spirit! :-/ :rolleyes:

200motels

davo2001 wrote: »

That's the spirit! :-/ :rolleyes:

I've tried everything but to no avail, if you have a solution let's see it

ZENER

DBAN

bonzodog2

Try zeroing the partition table from a live linux CD/USB with dd:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=512 count=1

adjust sda according to your system/distro

yoyo

200motels wrote: »

I've tried everything but to no avail, if you have a solution let's see it

Have you run a sector by sector diagnostic scan (such as using Seatools, Vivard, MHDD etc.) to see if the drive has any bad sectors? It sounds like the hard disk may be faulty

Nick

200motels

Thanks for the last few replies, I've checked the hard drive with above advise and it's basically a bad sectors issue, 40 gb is fine but the rest of the drive is a goner. At least I can tell my friend that a new hard drive will have to be installed. Thanks for all the help.

yoyo

200motels wrote: »

Thanks for the last few replies, I've checked the hard drive with above advise and it's basically a bad sectors issue, 40 gb is fine but the rest of the drive is a goner. At least I can tell my friend that a new hard drive will have to be installed. Thanks for all the help.

That 40GB probably won't be around much longer either! Good choice getting a new hard disk installed

Nick