Not recognizing all the hard drive - 300 of 500 GB showing

Hi hi,
This doesn't seem to me to be particularly a ubuntu or windows problem, though i made the problem through windows. so I'll post it here and on a Ubuntu forum and cross my fingers someone will be able to help.

SO

My computer had too many failed OSs and partitions on it, and I got a free windows 7 upgrade CD from Dell, so I decided to nuke it and start fresh.

I put the CD in, there was the simple upgrade button, didn't want that, went to the other option because i wanted to erase everything and start again.
The next screen was a list of partitions.
I deleted all partitions except the BIOS in the end. And popped windows 7 on, but it was only reading 300 GB.
Windows just says: Local disk: 297, no mention of other partitions under "Disk Management", when there was blank space or linux partitions in the past it read them.

I was hoping all this would be solved when I tried to install Ubuntu Lucid, but it's only reading the 297GB as well. Because of this I assume Gparted will have the same problem and there's no point consulting it.

If I did something wrong there's no problem with starting everything over again, all i've installed is firefox. But is there anything I can do, and will starting again even help?

Thanks for any help in advance

You need to do a full clean of your HD.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

theog said:

You need to do a full clean of your HD.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

I'd be super happy to do that, but if you read the instructions you'll note you need to know how windows has designated the partition you are clearing. As windows (or linux) is not recognising the existance missing 200GB I don't know how to direct to it and there's nothing for me to clear except the 300GB that are present and accounted for.

Please tell me I'm missing something!

Post back when clean all has finished, takes about 1 hour on a good 300g HD.

done, "list disk" still says the same thing. finishing the steps on that tutorial you sent me

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Dell isn't on the list

RabbitWho said:

Dell isn't on the list

Dell is your PC manufacturer, not HD manufacturer.