Hard drive only shows half mb

[mtthom]

I have a 4 gig hard drive that is not partitioned as far as I can tell, but when I go into system info, it only shows me having about 2 gigs total and 1.6 available. I have had this computer for a couple of years and never noticed until I reformatted the other day because my hard drive was filled up and just wanted to start over. I couldn't figure out how I filled up 4 gigs. How can I get the other 2 gigs of storage? Any help would be very much appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Voyager1]

What is your operating system? It is possible that the disk was originally partitioned/formatted under DOS, which will only recognize a 2gb partition.

 

[mtthom]

I'm using Win 98 version 2. I bought the computer used, so I guess it's possible that it could have been partitioned. Can I remove it? Also, after I reformatted, I checked fdisk for any partitions it only showed 1, it said that it had 2 gigs of space, but down below it said total space 4.3 gigs

 

[lgebhart]

Voyager1 is absolutely on track. Obviously the person who formatted this probably didn't even notice the format didn't recognize the whole drive. I'm not sure why they didn't create a logical drive with the rest of the 2.3GB, but we all have done silly things with our computers!

To get use of the whole drive follow the steps below:

1. fdisk off of your bootable floppy disk-let it use the large disk option by selecting (Y) for yes
2. Delete the current partition
3. Create a partition using the whole drive
4. Make the drive bootable
5. Before reformatting, run fdisk again and go to #4 to see if it shows the whole amount of the hard drive
If it does, you're almost done
7. ESC to get back to the prompt
8. Format c: from your bootable floppy disk -you should see 4,XXXMB formatting for it to be formatting a 4GB hard drive.
If it shows the whole amount while formatting, let it continue the format and then put your operating system on.

This is what I would do, maybe Voyager1 has a easier way!

Hope this helps,

Lori ggebhart@clover.net
I hope I never get too old or arrogant to learn something new!

 

[Voyager1]

Thanks, Lori - great tips. Let me add a few thoughts...

First and foremost - using fdisk to change the partitions will completely destroy all data on the drive. Just wanted to be clear on that.

Since you are using Win98SE you have a good option - but this will also destroy all data. First, create a bootable floppy using "format a: /s" from a command prompt, or use the "System Files" option in Explorer. Next, copy fdisk.exe from the c:\windows\command folder to that floppy. Reboot the machine with the diskette in the drive. Using fdisk, delete all existing partitions.

If your PC has a bootable CD, put the Win98SE CD in the drive and reboot the machine. This will take you into the Windows 98 setup. Otherwise, you should have gotten a Win98 Startup Disk in your Win98 package. If this is your case, boot from that floppy, with the Win98 CD in the drive as well.

Setup will then ask you if you want to use all drive space for the partition, it will create and format the partition, and then install Win98.

Good luck to you -

 

[mtthom]

That was it, Thank You both very much

Matt