Hard disk size wrong

Hi there, I have a 2.5" samsung IDE hard disk (PATA) 160gb that i was going to use in a portable caddy. When I first got it I checked it was ok and connected it to my pc and initialised it and formatted it (Fat 32) This was ok and it showed up as a 160gb so all fine. I then helped a friend who's Toshiba laptop needed the system returning to factory state with a recovery disk but which would only run to about halfway through the process. Suspecting the hard disk I put my hard disk in the laptop and the recovery still faulted. The laptop was subsequently reloaded on its original hard disk (120gb) with a windows disk and is fine. OK - Now the problem My hard disk had three partitions wrote to it from the recovery disk and I noticed they added up to 120gb. I have deleted all partitions still shows 120gb unallocated. I have connected it with different usb adaptors and caddys to different computers still shows 120gb I have used Disk management, partition magic, acronis disk director and gparted on linux still shows 120gb. I have tried Active kill disk and Spotmau to wipe the drive but still shows 120gb So has the recovery changed something permanent on the disk or is there a fix. A lot of people upgrade to bigger hard disk and just run the recovery to start again, but this is something i have never heard of before. If I now have a 120gb hard disk then fine but would like to know what happened. Thanks for any help

Hi Metrix


Sorry to hear of your troubles.

I am no expert though this Microsoft Knowledge Base article here, suggests that NTFS(NT File System) be used for XP(as indicated in your profile), instead of FAT32.

NOTE: Although the FAT32 file system supports hard disks up to 2 terabytes in size, some hard disks may not be able to contain bootable partitions that are larger than 7.8 GB because of limitations in your computer's BIOS.

After formatting your drive to Fat 32, then

I then helped a friend who's Toshiba laptop needed the system returning to factory state with a recovery disk
but which would only run to about halfway through the process.
Suspecting the hard disk I put my hard disk in the laptop and the recovery still faulted. The laptop was subsequently reloaded
on its original hard disk (120gb) with a windows disk and is fine.

Did you receive any messages at the halfway through?

NOTE: When you attempt to format a FAT32 partition that is larger than 32 GB during the Windows XP installation process, the format operation fails near the end of the process, and you may receive the following error message:"Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big."

Regardless of this, IMHO, I believe you will need to reformat your (2.5" samsung IDE hard disk (PATA) 160gb) back to 160GB, and I recommend NTFS for any Microsoft Operating System post Windows NT .

How to partition and format a hard disk by using Windows XP Setup program

If I now have a 120gb hard disk then fine but would like to know what happened.

I can only speculate as to what happened, It would seem that the Toshiba laptop changed settings on your hard disk so it appears to be 120GB.
There are some hardware Techs here that may be able to tell you exactly what happened.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

Sorted I didn't think the Fat Ntfs issues were necessary the problem as the recovery disk would have reformatted any way. I was told about a utility called HDAT2. downloaded this and created boot disk. When ran from cd there are quite a few disk tools but it shows you the disk layout. This showed the recovery disk i ran before had created a HPA (hidden protected area) and would have put its image in there. So only whats left ie 120gb was available to windows. The tool allowed me to restore native size, so back to 160gb. Hope this helps others if in similar probs. Thanks

Fat 32 is only good up to 32GB and file sizes up to 3 or 4GB max. For XP and a 160GB drive you need NTFS file system.

Just cloned an ITE 40gb HD to a SATA 250GB.. All works fine except that the size of the drive is shown as the previous 40gb did. This is ok Hard disk size The 40gb was shown as 37.2gb and now, so is the 250gb. How can I correct that? (Hopefully without reformated) JohnB3293, and this is hard disk size wrong

Fat 32 is only good up to 32GB and file sizes up to 3 or 4GB max.

can you clarify what you mean by this lee? i know of hard drives of way over 32gb that have been formatted with fat32, just because they are used for more than windows os.

Hi Terry,

With regard to XP.

"You cannot format a volume larger than 32 gigabytes (GB) in size using the FAT32 file system during the Windows XP installation process. Windows XP can mount and support FAT32 volumes larger than 32 GB (subject to the other limits), but you cannot create a FAT32 volume larger than 32 GB by using the Format tool during Setup. If you need to format a volume that is larger than 32 GB, use the NTFS file system to format it.
NOTE: When you attempt to format a FAT32 partition that is larger than 32 GB during the Windows XP installation process, the format operation fails near the end of the process, and you may receive the following error message: Logical Disk Manager: Volume size too big".

"You cannot create a file larger than (2^32)-1 bytes (this is one byte less than 4 GB) on a FAT32 partition".

"Clusters cannot be 64 kilobytes (KB) or larger. If clusters are 64 KB or larger, some programs (such as Setup programs) may incorrectly calculate disk space".

source:
Microsoft Support - Microsoft Support - Limitations of the FAT32 File System in Windows XP

Cheers,
Lee

PS Edit:
Fat32 volumes larger than 32GB can be created with the ME or 98 setup programs, not XP

well i never knew that xp wouldn't format a fat32 partition greater than 32gb(or is that during install only?), i always used ntfs. learn something new every day.

learn something new every day.

Me too I hope