Solved how do i restore factory capacity on wd external drive?

[ucma]

i have a wd 250Gb external drive using with 32bit win7 laptop. due to reasons unknown it is presently showing 149Gb.

for information, i have tried disk management<volume expand>, used data lifeguard diagnostic tests and all passed, but the figure still remains the same.

also tried AOMEI partition help to expand and remove partitions if any invisible, tried wiping it and adding zeros both in the short and long versions, but to no avail.

finally in seven forums i went over a similar problem and complied with the suggestion to try HDD capacity restore, but the website does not mention win7 compatibility; moreover it does install well but does not recognize any disks, either internal or external,

It would be appreciative if i can get hold of a similar solution which restores it back to factory settings.
thx. in anticipation.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Hello ucma mate take a look at this if you just want to wipe that drive use the command prompt method - it is lengthy but is final http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

Edit I meant to add you just need to format then.

 

[ucma]

thanks dear ICIT2LOL!

i tried doing through the tutorial. i just used 'clean' and not 'clean all', the size all the same withstanding.no changes.
can you help out with some software alike to 'HDD capacity restore' which works for 32bit win7?

all suggestions are welcome sir.... -ucma

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Now the clean or clean all should include the whole disk I just don't know why it didn't. The clean is a little bit different from clean all in that clean all is way more thorough than a plain clean but all the same the clean should have freed up that unusable space.

Now can you send a shot of the drive in Device Manager please?

Another way to see just what is going on is to use Partition Wizard Best Free Partition Manager for Windows | MiniTool Partition Free a shot of that drive in that would be helpful too. I am just interested in the content of that unusable space. Also with PW you can actually increase and decrease the partition spaces amongst many other functions - a very handy tool to have installed for many things.
See my pic for a very rough idea of what you will see

 

[jumanji]

Hi ucma,

1. Please furnish full details of your WD external drive. Model No: Model name like My Book, Elements. Passport?

2. 250GB showing 149GB now. Was it showing Full 250GB before?

3. As requested by ICIT2LOL post a screenshot of Device Manager.

4. Also post a screenshot of Windows Disk Management. Follow the guidelines here http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html to present a full screenshot with all the information.

5. Run Partition Wizard and post a screenshot of the first screen that appears when you launch PW.

As for Atola Capacity Restore is concerned it can't be run on external drives. So give up on it. We have to investigate and look into other ways of doing it.

Post all the info requested.

 

[jumanji]

How to restore Factory Capacity of a HDD?

The OP seems to have seen my post but has not responded.

I guess he wrongly reported the drive capacity as 250GB where in fact his drive was only 160 GB. When a 160GB HDD is formatted, it will only be 160X0.93132 = 149 Binary GB. ( When I asked him what is the model No: ( something like WD1600AAJS) and whether he had seen it as a 250 GB drive before, he must have woken up to that fact )

Anyway for those who have really really lost HDD space mysteriously (???) and no conventional partitioning/formatting tool can retrieve it means, the lost space is actually in a " Host Protected Area" of the HDD,.

No conventional formatting tool can retrieve such "lost" space. No wiping tool/ zero write tool whether diskpart clean all or any third party tool like HDD Lowlevel Format Tool, not even DBAN can retrieve it.

If one suspects some such mishap has taken place, he should run HDAT2/CBL Hard Disk Repair Utility . It can be tried in Demo mode on Windows. If it shows the HPA area - wherein the "lost" space is there -he has to boot in DOS and run it. (No execute command will work on Windows. Will work on DOS only.) Using the SET Max Command in DOS mode, will remove the Host Protected Area and annexe the hidden space to the drive, restoring the HDD to full factory capacity.

A success story here: http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...0-gb-disk-only-371-gb-un-allocated-space.html

 

[ucma]

recheckedstatus with pics

to ICIT2LOL!

i tried your last suggestion and am sending the snippets for the same.
sorry for the delay as i was out of town and could not check my drive. moreover, shd i try the 'power data recovery' also? as at the end of the long check it mentioned to try it if i was nor satisfied by the results.

thx shawn

 

[ucma]

re:

hi jumanji!

pls have a look at the screens asked for. the others can be seen in my preceeding post. your suggestions are valuable! thx.

i am aware of the power of two inequations for the drive data capacity and i was not in slumber; but my inquiry for you is specifically for the HDD.

Thx for letting know that it does not work for external drives. It does not show the internal drive(s) also (sent a snippet of that also). I tried it with utmost caution(as told in their site) to reboot and then try it without any applications running. So, i think that it does not really run in win7 as you suggested in the forum earlier, and only for other win versions before 7.

Forgetting about it, as you mentioned, i would certainly try your insight and get back......thank you again!

 

[mjf]

As stated above you have a 160 GB (decimal) external HDD not a 250 GB. The decimal to binary results in the 149 GB. That is why a WD1600BEV shows in Device manager.

 

[jumanji]

What I suspected was correct. Your WD 1600BEV is only a 160GB drive. So 149GB is the total space. You haven't lost anything.

This is the reason why you should always give the full details of the HDD like Model No , Model Name etc.,

You have simply taken us for a ride. ( excluding me . I refuse free rides and free lunch. )

Anyway you now know how to retrieve any lost space, - if it is really lost and lies in the Host Protected Area.

Read BigFatBoy's Thread here http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...0-gb-disk-only-371-gb-un-allocated-space.html where he really lost 129GB space in his HDD, Checked with Windows Version of HDAT2 and then retrieved it by running HDAT2 in DOS mode with Setmax Command. So I have given you the answer how to retrieve any realy really lost space.

You can check your HDD with Windows Version of HDAT2. It won't show any lost space - since nothing has been lost.

 

[ucma]

Under that case i really apologize.
Thank you @ ICIT2LOL, jumanji and mjf!

It seems i've been taken for a ride as i took the drive at face value without checking. I tried looking at the wd site but could not get this model for details...is there any derivative for the 1600 extension in the drive name itself?

 

[jumanji]

You are welcome.

Model Number- WD Internal drives: http://www.wdc.com/wdproducts/library/other/2579-001028.pdf



WD 1600BEV - 1600 denotes 160.0 GB

For any further clarifications on other codes - which I am not interested - ask WD Support.

 

[AddRAM]

Hard drive manufacturers never put the true windows size on the drive or box, they use 1000 per GB, windows uses 1024 per GB
1 TB drive is 931 GB in windows not 1000 GB
500 GB drive is 465 GB in windows
320 GB drive is 289 GB in windows
265 GB drive is 238 GB in windows
250 GB drive is 232 GB in windows
160 GB drive is 149 GB in windows

etc etc etc

 

[jumanji]

1,000,000,000 bytes = Decimal GB
1,073,741,824 bytes = Binary GB

So, one Decimal GB = 0.93132 Binary GB

Just multiply the manufacturer indicated Decimal GB by 0.93132 to get the Binary GB you will see, as in my post #6.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Look mate from my perspective it was a simple mistake and it really did not upset me. I think that some of us tend to assume that some posters are on top of the game and hey it would be boring if we were all the same eh??