Solved 500GB Drive Only Shows 258GB

[gulfstreamtwo]

Hiya pal,

This might sound a bit daft but is there any chance you could take a pic (with your mobile phone etc.) of you bios (hdd settings) --- or you could just write them down and post the results maybe

This is just a random pic of someone's settings off the net but it basically shows what I mean ...

I looks fine in the BIOS. Here's what is reported for the C: drive:
Device: Hard Drive
Vendor: WDC WD5000AAKS-00C8A0
Size: 500.1 GB
LBA mode: Supported
Block Mode: 16 Sectors
PIO Mode: 4
Async DMA: MultiWord DMA-2
Ultra DMA: Ultra DMA-5
SMART Monitoring: Supported

Thanks for the response.

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

Yeah, in my experience as well system restore points just take up space, they don't limit the drive size... I am completely baffled by this. If you try to copy a larger amount of things to the drive than there is free space, does it tell you there is not enough space?

I'd really rather not try that one unless I'm desperate. Thanks for the thought, though. I'll let you know if I decide to try this. It would probably take some time to stuff the drive, and then have to clean it out again.

 

[PooMan UK]

Soz pal, I meant both drives

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

Soz pal, I meant both drives

Here's what the BIOS shows for the D: drive, which is also reported correctly in all the usual places:

Device: Hard Drive
Vendor: WDC WD3000Hlfs-01G6U1
Size: 300 GB
LBA Mode: Supported
Block Mode: 16 Sectors
PIO Mode: 4
Sync DMA: MultiWord DMA-2
Ultra DMA: Ultra DMA-5
SMART Monitor: Supported

 

[mjf]

If you are still experimenting you could try
(1) go to command prompt
>dir /a
and see if the free space agrees with windows explorer (probably will).
Means it's an issue you will have to resolve or your directory will think the disk is full when it isn't.
(2) depending on your comfort levels you could image c:
attach the vhd under disk management. Then see what windows explorer pie chart for the mounted image.

 

[Purkinje]

This may be a dumb troubleshooting question, but have you tried looking at a partitioning utility, and checking if there is unallocated space in D:? I don't know if that would show up in Disk Management or not, but it might be worth a try to boot into something like Gparted and examine D: outside of a Windows environment.

 

[Lee1075]

In computer management Disk management, if you right click on your drives (C or D) an option should appear for "expanding or shrinking" your drive space. Have you tried that?

 

[gregrocker]

There are times when Disk Mgmt is wrong, but normally Explorer won't agree.

However when Disk Mgmt is wrong on partitioning details or sizes, I use free Partition Wizard bootable CD (not the Windows version) to get the actual size or staus.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

The size given for C is too close to what it should be for D to not think that they are being confused. However, to make sure i would also run chkdsk /r and the HD maker's diag/repair CD scan (Data Lifeguard) since the only way a truly 500gb HD would report such disparately less space is if it had multiple bad sectors quarantined by formatting.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html
http://www.tacktech.com/display.cfm?ttid=287

You can run reasonably good versions of both of these tests from Partition Wizard CD: Check File System and Surface Scan. If they report errors I would cross-check with Disk Check and Maker's Diag scan.

 

[mjf]

There are times when Disk Mgmt is wrong, but normally Explorer won't agree.

However when Disk Mgmt is wrong on partitioning details or sizes, I use free Partition Wizard bootable CD (not the Windows version) to get the actual size or staus.

Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software - Partition Wizard Online

The size given for C is too close to what it should be for D to not think that they are being confused. However, to make sure i would also run chkdsk /r and the HD maker's diag/repair CD scan (Data Lifeguard) since the only way a truly 500gb HD would report such disparately less space is if it had multiple bad sectors quarantined by formatting.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

You can run reasonably good versions of both of these tests from Partition Wizard CD: Check File System and Surface Scan. If they report errors I would cross-check with Disk Check and Maker's Diag scan.

By all means try anything but:
(1) Diskmanagement - cmd>diskpart commands confirm the disk/partition sizes. As does the BIOS.
(2) Windows Explorer - I Suggested cmd> dir /a . I expect the two to confirm.
If so there appears to be a disparity between the directory and the available disk space.

A disk check is always a good idea. I'd be tempted to schedule it directly from Windows though. See Tutorial. That many bad sectors would seem unlikely to me.

Then have a go at mounting an image as an option as I suggested earlier.

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

This may be a dumb troubleshooting question, but have you tried looking at a partitioning utility, and checking if there is unallocated space in D:? I don't know if that would show up in Disk Management or not, but it might be worth a try to boot into something like Gparted and examine D: outside of a Windows environment.

The only disk partitioning s/w I have is something like Partition Magic 7.01. I'll have to check to see if it works with large NTFS partitions and may give that a go.

A correction for your post: it's my C: drive that's not reporting correctly. D: reports correctly. For clarity, there are two physical drives, each with one partition using the entire drive. As you'll note from the Disk Management info (left hand screen shot on the initial post), the C: drive has no unpartitioned space. 465 GB is the correct reported size for a "500 GB" drive. Also, right clicking on the C: drive reveals only an option to shrink the volume, while extend volume is grayed out.

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

In computer management Disk management, if you right click on your drives (C or D) an option should appear for "expanding or shrinking" your drive space. Have you tried that?

Thanks. Yes. The "Extend Volume" choice is grayed out; only "Shrink Volume" is available.

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

If you are still experimenting you could try
(1) go to command prompt
>dir /a
and see if the free space agrees with windows explorer (probably will).
Means it's an issue you will have to resolve or your directory will think the disk is full when it isn't.
(2) depending on your comfort levels you could image c:
attach the vhd under disk management. Then see what windows explorer pie chart for the mounted image.

Here's a screen shot of the command line window after running dir /a. Without running the conversion, the reported free space of 177,615,155,200 bytes sounds pretty close to the reported 165 GB free in windows explorer.

 

[WindowsStar]

A few questions:

#1 Was this hard drive in a Windows XP machine, then someone deleted all the directories and installed Windows 7 on it? Looks like there are old Windows XP files on the drive.
#2 Why do you have the {B5BE68F8.... on the root?

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

A few questions:

#1 Was this hard drive in a Windows XP machine, then someone deleted all the directories and installed Windows 7 on it? Looks like there are old Windows XP files on the drive.
#2 Why do you have the {B5BE68F8.... on the root?

#1 - No. I reformated when I installed Win7 64 bit on it last November.
#2 - I have no idea. I don't know where the file came from or what it's for. Why? Is it important that it be somewhere else?

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

There are times when Disk Mgmt is wrong, but normally Explorer won't agree.

However when Disk Mgmt is wrong on partitioning details or sizes, I use free Partition Wizard bootable CD (not the Windows version) to get the actual size or staus.

Free Download Magic Partition Manager Software - Partition Wizard Online

The size given for C is too close to what it should be for D to not think that they are being confused. However, to make sure i would also run chkdsk /r and the HD maker's diag/repair CD scan (Data Lifeguard) since the only way a truly 500gb HD would report such disparately less space is if it had multiple bad sectors quarantined by formatting.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html
Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

You can run reasonably good versions of both of these tests from Partition Wizard CD: Check File System and Surface Scan. If they report errors I would cross-check with Disk Check and Maker's Diag scan.

You're the man! Using the bootable version of Partition Wizard demonstrated that the drive was acting as if the boot partition used only a part of the drive. Resizing to the entire usable space restored the capacity.

Running chkdsk afterwards showed only one un-indexed file, which it repaired.

Thanks to everyone, and especially you, gregrocker, for all the suggestions, whether I'd already tried them or not. The attitudes here are superb!

 

[mjf]

Glad to see you got it sorted.
A bit sad that it took Partition Wizard (which many of us use) to point out the problem.
C: is one partition and the boot partition. I would have expected Disk management to show something (eg. unallocated space).

 

[LiquidSnak]

I would have expected Disk management to show something (eg. unallocated space).

I as well. Glad you got everything working right

 

[Hopalong X]

I knew I'd get you a collection of assistance that would prove fruitful.

Thanks everyone who assisted.

Hoppy and Topper

 

[Purkinje]

Glad to see you got it sorted.
A bit sad that it took Partition Wizard (which many of us use) to point out the problem.
C: is one partition and the boot partition. I would have expected Disk management to show something (eg. unallocated space).

I did too. I wonder if something went screwy in the formatting of the drive at installation of Windows 7. Also, I wonder why Partition Wizard noticed the unallocated space and Windows Explorer and Disk Management didn't.:huh:

Anyhow, good to see the problem fixed, and the rest of that space is opened up for you.

 

[gulfstreamtwo]

Thanks for all the support, guys. I too was baffled by the disagreement between the two reports (which is why I asked for help), but gratefull that there was a simple fix.

I stopped using partition managers when hard drives became so cheap, so it was only in my background thinking. I was about to check up on whether my trusty and well used copy of Partition Magic would work when gregrocker suggested Partition Wizard. I think at least someone else suggested it too, so I don't want to minimise that help.

I rated everyone up who offered suggestions. This forum is fabulous, and I'll recommend to anyone who I can't help with computer issues.