I can definitely remember being able to use more than just 298GB, if I was always getting 298GB of usable space on my HDD, as stated in My Computer, I wouldn't have started this thread, and I didn't say that the HDD wasn't NTFS, although the hard drive was in FAT32 before I had to reformat it to NTFS in order to install Windows 7 Ultimate.
Basically, I used to have Windows 7 Home Premium, and the hard drive then would offer me 320GB (or at least closer than 298GB) with the NTFS file system, then a couple of weeks or so ago, the OS at the time had erased itself and the file system of the HDD had changed to FAT32. I then proceeded to install Windows 7 Ultimate, and I had to format the HDD back to NTFS, but when I finally managed to log in, My Computer only showed up with 298GB of usable space. Would having a 40GB partition for Windows 8 Consumer Preview have affected it?
Having the 40 GB would have lowered your total available space from 298 GB to roughly 258 GB. The point we're trying to make is that you may have misread something along the way. I do have to agree, it's very tough to follow what happened. OSes don't erase themselves and convert a drive to FAT32 on their own.
As detailed above, your drive's actual maximum is 298 GB of space...so anything you would be dealing with would always have to be equal to or lesser than that. That's why I was asking where you saw that you were using more. It's possible some application may have been telling you that you had a 320 GB hard drive, rather than reporting actual space.
well, I am presuming there may have been some sort of malware that may have done this from an email? as I realised about a week after the problem that my friend's email address was sending most of it's contacts spam emails, and it all looked pretty genuine, until I showed them the email and they said that they didn't send it. I'm guessing that the file that was downloaded when the link was clicked was malware, as it was something posing as an antivirus, as I didn't have one installed and the email had said that my friend liked it and that he recommended it to me. so would this kind of thing be the cause of the problem in the first place?
Malware may well have caused the OS erasing itself issue.
I would be highly skeptical of anything that ever told me I had other than 298 GB formatted capacity with an NTFS file system on a 320 GB drive.
Do you have any reason to believe you are free of malware now??
Yes, I went out and bought myself McAfee antivirus, seemed good, as when I clicked on the same link again as to test it, it came up as being unsafe, so hopefully there will be no more problems!
I'd just like to thank everyone so much for their help, and for showing me how the usable HDD size tends to be a lot lower than the actual size.
Connor
If I ever change my mind about the antivirus, what do you think would be the best one?
Quote