Bloody freaking hell ... My 160GB drive is suddenly a 32GB drive. ***SOLVED***

[eppur_se_muova]

Last edited Sun Apr 13, 2014, 01:22 AM - Edit history (1)

I had partitioned this drive into three 47GB partitions and one 8GB swap partition. Tried to install Ubuntu and Mint on a Dell Optiplex 760 (3GHz Core2 Duo); apparently this platform doesn't work for any but the most recent versions of Linux. So I moved the drive into a Sony Vaio minitower (3.8 GHz P4) and tried to do the installation there. Also downloaded more recent installers. None of my available formatting tools can see *anything* but a 32 GB, single-partition drive. Even low-level formatting doesn't work. What on earth could have happened to this drive ?


ETA: Capacity Restore (see response #18 by gvstn) did the trick ! After running CR and rebooting, Windows showed the disk as 32GB but the Hardware Manager suddenly showed a large block of unused space as well. Installing Linux Mint on the disk is in progress -- I've formatted it as three 50GB partitions plus ~7GB swap space. Before using CR I had three 47GB and one 8GB, so total space did go up.

[PoliticAverse]

1. How are you 'low level formatting'? Who manufactured the drive? n/t

[Mnpaul]

2. Do you have a working desktop to use?

Attach the drive to the desktop and use Mini Tool partition wizard to diagnose the drive. You probably need to rebuild the MBR.

You could also boot from a Hirens boot cd and fix with one of the included utilities.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. I've tried just about every utility on Hiren's Boot CD.

They all show the drive as 32 GB, no other partitions. This is weird. I have another drive of the same model (Seagate Barracuda) which I've already partitioned and am currently using as a Linux Mint boot disk, with Ubuntu 13.04 on a second partition (also boots).

Maybe the Serial No. got changed ?? All the installers -- WinXP 64-bit, Ubuntu 64-bit, Linux Mint, show the drive as a 32GB drive. And it was clearly 160GB (actually, 160 billion bytes, 139 GB) before.

[ucrdem]

12. I'd second the MiniTool Partition Wizard suggestion.

Make sure it's the latest update. The programs on your Hiren's CD might be out of date. Also if you have more than 4 partitions at least two will need to be set as extended rather than primary partitions. If it's a GPT-partitioned disk that doesn't apply but you won't be able to install XP on it. If all else fails can you reformat the whole thing and start over?

[eppur_se_muova]

15. Well, I've *been* trying to reformat it and start over.

I'm starting to suspect a bad SATA cable. Will test and post after.

[Pharaoh]

3. Do you have a boat?

[eppur_se_muova]

5. Well, there's a non sequitur. nt

[Pharaoh]

6. I just meant

it might make a perfectly useful boat anchor

[eppur_se_muova]

8. Nah, too small. nt

[gvstn]

7. I'm not sure.

Does BIOS see the drive as 32gb?
Which partitioners are you using? MiniTools and Easeus are the two best free ones from my testing and I lean a bit towards Easeus as there were some flaws with Minitools partition wizard back in version 7 seeing too many drives as "bad" and somehow marking them bad in a way that made them difficult to work with. I see PW is now at v. 8.1 so I am sure it is fixed. This would be a link to Easeus Partition Master: http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/easeus_partition_master_home_edition.html
Have you tried using the HDD manufacturer's low-level format tool to zero the drive? That usually works.

Lastly, I'll give this link since you must be familiar with downloading ISO files and may want to just jump in and fix things. The fourth from last reply gives step by step instructions that seem specific enough to consider worth a try.

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/245185-32-windows-recognizes-hard-drive
http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/ultimate_boot_cd_%28ubcd%29.html

Edit: I see that you have Hirens and MHDD32 should be on there as well. So if you haven't tried that program give it a quick try.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. I need to update my Hiren's. Thanks for the info. nt

[MannyGoldstein]

9. I think there's a BIOS setting that can cause this

sometimes.

HDD mode or something.

[hobbit709]

11. Is it an IDE drive. Did you move the jumper that limits it to 32 Gb?

[eppur_se_muova]

13. I haven't changed any jumpers; didn't even see any on it -- it's SATA.

Details, please ? It might be relevant.

I'm starting to suspect it might be a bad cable. That will be easy to check, but I have to steal a cable from a running machine to do it.

[gvstn]

16. SATA drives do not have jumpers so it isn't a jumper problem.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. OK, thanks. It wasn't a cable problem, either, apparently. :(

Now I am at a loss.

[gvstn]

18. I think you want to verify

That BIOS also sees the HDD as 32gb. If it too sees it as 32gb then it is something fundamentally wrong with the information being reported by the HDD.

My original link is really the type of program you want to use to set the HDD back to "native size". I see a Windows program that could possibly work but it is not running properly for me on Win7 64bit so I can't vouch for it. http://hddguru.com/software/2007.07.20-HDD-Capacity-Restore-Tool/

**I think the problem has something to do with the HPA but I've only read about it so I can't give any first hand advice. https://www.google.com/#q=hpa+wrong+capacity

[eppur_se_muova]

19. Capacity Restore did the trick !! Many thanks !

Honestly, this would have driven me crazy w/out someone else to ask. It's amazing that none of the authors of other HD formatting tools ever thought to include this !

I actually ended up w/8GB more than I thought I paid for.

[gvstn]

20. I'm glad it worked for you.

May I ask which version of Windows you ran it on? I seem to remember trying it before and getting the same errors I did this time. First, I get an "opening driver" error and then a garbled main window. I'm fairly sure I was running Win7 both times but not sure if it was always 64bit. I'm trying to narrow it down between it not being compatible with 64bit or all versions of Win7.

[eppur_se_muova]

21. WinXP, x64. Didn't see anything like that ...

and I did DL the latest version. I did get a warning message that it didn't work on slave drives at one point (probably in an older version) -- also, won't work if two drives are on the same channel. So I left the boot drive in place and connected the drive I was trying to fix to another channel -- it was repaired, even though it was apparently a slave drive.

Hope that helps -- it sure solved my problem, and thanks again.