Solved Problem with hard drive space

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

Hi there i am some trouble here, i am trying to sort out my friends pc for her. What has happened is windows 7 no longer see's all the space on the hard drive. she reckons that it just happened, but she cant really remember.
when you click on my computer you get everything come up as normal except windows shows only 12gb of space on a 250gb hard drive (see example 1), but when you go to the computer management section windows shows the space is there. (see example 2).
Any help would be greatly appreciated thank you

seavixen32 · Mar 4, 2012

Welcome to Windows Seven Forums.

I don't quite know how it has happened, but the 12GB partition should not be allocated a drive letter, let alone drive letter C.

This partition is the computer's recovery partition and should not have a drive letter at all.

The 220GB partition holds the Windows OS and doesn't have a drive letter allocated, when in fact it should be allocated drive letter C.

Go into Disk Management and remove drive letter C from the 12GB partition, and then allocate it to the 220GB Windows partition.

This tutorial should help if you need it: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/82994-drive-letter-add-change-remove-windows-7-a.html

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

ah right i see what you mean, but everything is on :C if i open it, there are 4 folders:- PerfLogs, Program Files, Users and Windows. i cant open the other one, the open function is greyed out, in the disc management section.
i dont know whats happened either or how she has done it.

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

and Thank you

sreedhav · Mar 4, 2012

Dear Sean Birt,

A warm welcome to SevenForums!

1) Computer shows the used up disk spaces and naturally the free spaces. That's the norm.

2) Whereas under "Disk Management", the partitions per se do not show the above details. Instead they are listed above as percentages which you have not included in your snap.(View mine below)

3) I have noticed something else. The "system Reserve" of 100 MB is not seen in the disk management pic.View mine for comparison.

regards and best wishes,
sreedhav

seavixen32 · Mar 4, 2012

There is no System Reserved partition because the unmapped Windows drive holds the Active flag.

I think now the best course of action is to run a startup repair.

Run it three times with a reboot between each ocurrence as explained in this tutorial.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

i am now trying a start up repair ill keeep you posted

seavixen32 · Mar 4, 2012

OK, but do make sure you run it three times with a reboot between each one.

If it doesn't do the trick you may be faced with restoring the computer to its factory state - assuming of course your friend has a recovery disc (s).

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

no she has not got a recovery disc, she bought the laptop from a catologue and thats all she got,the laptop.
i am now trying the 3 times start up repair, lets see what happens. ta
see image for what is actually on :c

Vertex · Mar 4, 2012

The huge 220GB part of the drive does not show up on on My Computer because there was no drive letter assigned to it. I have seen a tutorial on Youtube that removing the drive letter assigned to a drive makes it hide itself from showing on My Computer but not on the Computer Management console.

My solution for this is to assign a drive letter to that 220GB space:

Right click at that 220GB drive space on the Computer Management console then Change Drive Letter and Paths. You must then add the drive letter of your choice such as D: then click OK.

Then go to My Computer and see if it shows up.

1Bowtie · Mar 4, 2012

The pic you show is right because you are looking at the factory image, it is the os as such for getting the comp back the way the factory set it up, NEW

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

i have done that before, but becuase all the os n stuff is on :C it still says there is no space on :C when trying to install new software. so reinstalled windows hoping that it would sort it out, but when i had finished installing, it was still the same as the images above

Vertex · Mar 4, 2012

I insist you do this solution:

Right click at that 220GB drive space on the Computer Management console then Change Drive Letter and Paths. You must then add the drive letter of your choice such as D: then click OK.

Then go to My Computer and see if it shows up.

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

i have done this and yes it does show up.

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

and i done the 3 start up repairs, nothing changed. poo hehe ta

Vertex · Mar 4, 2012

You have a drive E: now. Try right clicking this new drive E: from the Computer Management console, then Shrink volume. Shrink it a little. Afterwards, right click on drive C: then Extend Volume. This will use the space you shrunk from drive E: to be used to extend the capacity of drive C:

Hope this works out for you.

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

ok ta i will try that, just gonna watch the end of the rugby

Sean Birt · Mar 4, 2012

i have shrunk :E drive but extend drive on :c is greyed out.

Vertex · Mar 4, 2012

Actually, this drive E: could be pretty useful. I suggest you only use 1/3 or even 1/4 of the overall disk space on drive C: then drive E: is where you should tell your friend to save important files, music, documents and other data so when drive C: gets reformatted, if ever Windows is reinstalled, her files would be sitting safe at drive E:

Vertex · Mar 4, 2012

Post a screenshot. What happens with the shrunken space?

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