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

[RabbitWho]

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

 

[theog]

You need to do a full clean of your HD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html

 

[RabbitWho]

You need to do a full clean of your HD.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html

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!

 

[RabbitWho]

bump

I gotta thank you guys as well for your suggestions! It was very late last night and I was very frustrated! But this is a new day and I'm sure I'll have it fixed in the next 12 hours

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html

K I'm on step 2 part 4, cleaning, but funny thing is it says there are two disks and there shouldn't be. Disk 0 297 GB, Disk 1 0B
What's that about?

Anyway I'm not expecting anything as it's only writing over the 297 it can see with 0s. There's nothing wrong with that 297 is the other part that's teh problem. But we'll see!

 

[theog]

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

 

[RabbitWho]

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

 

[theog]

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

 

[RabbitWho]

Dell isn't on the list

 

[theog]

Dell isn't on the list

Dell is your PC manufacturer, not HD manufacturer.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Use Speccy to find out what brand hard drive you have...then use theog's link to find the appropriate program.

Speccy - System Information - Free Download

 

[RabbitWho]

When looking for the make of the hard drive i found the original receipt for the computer and... oh.. my.. god.. I'm an idiot.

Base
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T4200 (2.0GHz, 800MHz, 1MB cache)
Memory
4096MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x2048]
Keyboard
Internal UK English Qwerty Keyboard
Video Card
Intel Integrated GMA 4500MHD
Hard Drive
320GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive

So sorry for wasting your time, thanks so much for your help!
There's still a mystery 20 GB missing. I'm sure there's some reasonable explanation for that.

Thanks so much again for the help. I need to get my head checked!


If anyone actually genuinely has this problem and hasn't imagined it there is a free partition editor for all operating systems that works with 64 bit called parted magic: http://partedmagic.com/

 

[theog]

Take a look here:
Hard Drive Size Capacities Calculator

320 = 298.2