I've installed a re-cycled hard disc. How do I reformat it so that I can access all it's capacity.?

Question

I've installed an 80 gig hard disk. I can only see 34 gig. My computer tells me there is 78. something gig on the disk. I suspect there's an old partition that is stopping me getting to all the space . How do I free it up ? I've tried to format the disk from XP but it won't let me !

Answer 1

Try this. Go into command prompt (MS-DOS) by clicking start, all programs, then accessories. In accessories, click MS-DOS. In the command field type format c:

It will ask you if you want to completely erase all files. Type in Y for yes.

Answer 2

If you are installing the disk on a computer without an operating system, and you plan on installing XP, XP will take you through the disk formatting and partitioning and let you remove/add partitions. Otherwise, you will probably need third party software to remove partitions; I use Powerquest Partition Magic 8.0, but there are several others (including freeware/shareware) available. Just google for drive partition software.

There may be hidden files on the disk, so format the drive - if you can see it in XP, then right click and 'format' or in MS-DOS, use the command "format c:" where c is the drive letter.

Answer 3

It seems only part of your hard disk was partitioned for use.Since winxp does not support dos operations, what you do is find a win98 boot cd and boot your computer with it with cd drive option. Use the command fdisk and partition the remaining 40 or so gigs and then format it when you are done.
Alternatively you can do this under administrative tools/computer management/disk management but this can prove difficult if your hd has bad sectors/damaged

Answer 4

Is the hard drive's jumper set to report only 32 Gb to the OS ?

Check the jumper on the back of the hard drive - that's the little black (usually) thing that connects one pair of the three (or four) pairs of pins beside the main ribbon cable connector.

There will be details on the top of the hard drive telling you which jumper position you need for various settings - one of them will be to tell the drive only to report 32 Gb to the OS as earlier OSs than Win XP couldn't handle more than 32 Gb.

Put the jumper into the correct position for Master - or Slave (usually no jumper required) if this is the second hard drive and you don't want it to be the Master. But if this is the second hard drive on that cable check to see if the first one has the jumper set to Cable Select, and if so, set this drive to Cable Select as well. That way the Master and Slave status is assigned according to their position on the cable.

If that still doesn't work, set your BIOS to boot from your CD and restart with your WinXP disk in the CD drive (disconnect any other hard drive for the time being so you don't accidentally format that) and you should be able to reformat the whole 80 Gb disk and install XP afresh.

Hope this helps.

Answer 5

Try going into Disk Administrator under Administrative Tools in the control panel, and see if you get more options.

Or if you have access to a DOS disk boot to that and run fdisk, then format.

Answer 6

you say it was a recycled drive i'm thinking there were bad sectors on the part you cant see thats why they partitioned them out i would go buy a new drive so i wouldnt have to worry about how long my recycled drive would last

Answer 7

boot from your xp disc and follow the formatting process.

Answer 8

install that hdd as a slave drive then format it by right hit & format if it dont go start pc in safemode then right hit & format