My Computer only shows 127GB of HDD but it's a 500GB HDD, can someone help me?

Question

I bought a preconfigured pc from packard bell with windows vista and a HDD of 500GB. Vista wasn't working properly. Because my employer gave me Vista Home Premium for free, I decided to reinstall Vista. My computer works much better now, but when I go to 'My Computer' he only recognises 127GB of HDD. When I go to BIOS, it locates a 500GB HDD.

Can someone help me so I'm able to access the entire HDD in windows?

Thanx!!!

Answer 1

You should use Disk Management to see if Vista does recognize it.

*To access Disk Management, right click on My Computer, and select Manage from the context menu – this will open the Computer Management console (alternatively, Disk Management may be accessed from Control Panel> Administrative Tools> Computer Management).

*From the Computer Management console, click on Disk Management which is located under the Storage section in the left hand pane.

Now see how big it is actually reporting the hard drive as.
It may be that Vista does not see the full size. If it does see the full size of the hard drive, but has only partitioned 127GB of it, (which may have happened), you can use the Disk Management tool to partition the remainder of the drive as a separate partition, or (as a new feature included in Vista), resize the existing partition to take full advantage of the hard drive.

*** WARNING - ALWAYS BACK-UP YOUR DATA before attempting to re-patition a drive, (UNLESS it is information that you can afford to lose if something goes wrong).

The other alternative is a BIOS limitation, but you stated that the BIOS sees the correct size. You can check with your Motherboard manufacturers site and see if there are any known issues and if there is a BIOS update they may have to fix it.
(Be sure to follow any instructions they have to the letter if there is a BIOS Update... Failure to due so may render your motherboard useless. If you are not comfortable doing this, seek professional assistance. Someone with and A+ or better is recomended.)

Hope this helped...

Answer 2

Ok, This is kinda tricky. I had this problem in windows xp, I had to update to Service Pack 1 or 2. Then the rest of your freespace will show up as unallocated space in your computer management. Right Click on My computer, Left Click Manage, Click Disk Management on the left and you should see your extra hdd space. You can format it through there and assign it a driveletter like G:\ or whatever you have available. Then you have to use a partition program like partition magic to merge the partitions together. I'm not too familiar with Vista, but it should be somewhat similar. Just make sure you have all of your windows updates, then check for unallocated space in your disk management.

Answer 3

It sounds like your HD has unallocated space. That is just empty, unused space that is not partitioned with the rest, it is as if you have a smaller HD, because it is not recognized as usable space. You can find out if thats what it is or not a couple of ways...go to start, run, type in cmd, when the prompt comes up type Fdisk ( I'm not sure if that works in newer vers. of windows). Or under Control Panel, go to Administrators Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management. This will show you all the partitions that you have installed. You can edit them accordingly. Hope this helps!

Answer 4

is it formated with NTFS or FAT32?
if it formated with FAT32 it will show like that.
I never use Vista so I don't know what's the problem in Vista.
but if it formated with NTFS and shows 127Gb,you should reformated again with normal cluster.
If it doesn't work you better to complain to get your warranty.