My 120 gig has now become 30-gig only, help!

[paxelius]

I used to have a 120 gig HD with FAT32 filesystem which worked great, no problem.

When I got a new computer and connected the old hd (my 120 gig), my windows xp pro couldn't read it and told me it was corrupt and needed to reformat.

I didn't panic- I booted up my Knoppix cd and using this linux os I was able to easily read and write to the 120 gig, all data was still there and unharmed.

After making backup of all important data I decided that I wanted to repartition my 120 gig into a full NTSF filesystem. I booted in Windows XP Pro and used Partition Magic 8.. but somehow something went terribly wrong..

The program crashed during a repartition from FAT32 to NTSF.. and now, after alot of mucking about I have managed to my previous defect (in windows only) 120-gig hd into a working 30 gig-hd. It seems I can make full NTSF partion and make it work, but it only finds 30 gig. What happened to my 120-gig HD ?! How can I find the other 90 gig that seems to have disappeared ?

I am starting to panic now, every partition magic program I use only find my HD to be 30 gig, but it used to be recognized as a 120 gig. What happened, is it possible to fix ?

Thanks for any help!

 

[LawnBoy]

Does fdisk on knoppix see the full capacity? I would utterly wipe the drive and start over, creating a new partition and formatting it NTFS.

 

[paxelius]

Hi Lawnboy, I have not found fdisk in Knoppix yet, can you tell me where it is?

I am new to Knoppix and only know the basics, I've used a program called: qtparted v0.4.4 which lists all my devices (hd's and cd-rom) and in here I can clearly see my 120 gig hd as a 120 gig hd, like this:
Number, Partition, Type, Status, Size, Used space, Start, End, Label
01 /UNIONFS/dev/hdd-1 free Hidden 111.79 GB N/A 0.00MB 111.79GB

*the last thing I did before booting up Knoppix was to delete the entire partition in partition magic. But while I wiped the whole partition as you suggested, it didn't understand that it was a 120 gig, only possible to make a 30 gig partition afterwards. What program do you use to 'utterly wipe the drive and start over'?

thanks for helping

 

[paxelius]

News update:

Using the qtparted program in Knoppix I managed to partition the whole 120 gig hd with ntsf and reformat, seemingly without error.

Upon rebooting in windows, I find the 120 gig device listed in 'my computer' but without any refrence to filesize. I click on it and I get a windows-box saying "The disk in Drive F is not formatted. Want to format ? Yes/No"

If I choose Yes, I can choose from a pull-down menu the Capacity - but my only option is to choose Capacity: 31.4 GB

Why can't it make full use of my 120 gig hd capacity ? Is this a problem with windows ?-- what program can help me make a full 120 gig NTSF partition ?

(I thought Knoppix did that with no errors, as stated previously, but that doesn't help as it is 'corrupted' in windows)

 

[PRPhx]

Sounds like you need to get the low level format from the manufacturer's website and re-initialize the hard drive back to factory settings. THEN you should be able to format the drive in Windows to it's full capacity. Sounds like partition info is mangled under windows and needs to be repaired.

 

[cdogg]

paxelius,

It's possible that the drive is still stuck in FAT32. Windows XP only has the ability to go up to ~32GB for FAT32 partitions.

Try deleting the partition and starting over with NTFS.

~cdogg
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
[tab][navy]For general rules and guidelines to get better answers, click here:[/navy] faq219-2884

 

[LawnBoy]

paxelius:
Lol, I prefer qparted over fdisk myself, wasn't sure if it was included in Knoppix.

cdogg may be on to something. Run qparted again, and just remove all partitions. Don't repartition it with qparted, just take it to windows in that state, with no partitions on it. Knoppix apparently does recognize the full capacity of the drive, but there is only 30 GB partitioned.

Even with the 2.6 kernel, NTFS write support on linux is not guaranteed (linux will read it no prob, just sketchy on write) and so now it may be qparted messing things up instead of PM8.

If none of this works I'd follow PRPhx's advice.

 

[paxelius]

Thanks all, a close scrutiny of your collective efforts to help me has yielded fantastic results, my 120-gig is now a full working 120 gig NTSF !

I forgot to tell you all about the jumper-settings on my hd, they were the culprit to my misfortune. I found the jumper schematic at Western Digital's homepage and all I had to do was to remove 1 pin and the 32 gig barrier was removed. (how I ever managed to use it as a full 120 gig FAT32 with those jumper settings I don't know, but I did.)

Thanks for your help.