500 GB hard drive decreased to only 20 GB?

Question

I've already asked this question before, but I didn't get any solid answers. My 500 GB hard drive only has a capacity of 20 GB all the sudden. My computer is new and doesn't have that much stuff on it. Got any ideas how this happened? Any solutions? I don't want to buy another hard drive and have to start form scratch. That would really tick me off!! Oh, I have done a defragmentation but that didn't help much.

One of the answers I received suggested using partitioning software. Is this a good idea? I still don't understand how the hell this even happened..

Answer 1

You will need to format your hard drive:



Formatting a Secondary Hard Drive



1) Right-Click on the “My Computer” icon either on your desktop or in the Start Menu and select “Manage.”



2) A new window titled “Computer Management” comes up. Select “Storage” from the left hand side by clicking it once, then select “Disk Management(local)” from the right side by double-clicking it.



Continued on page below. Cheers!

Answer 2

samual had it right but here is what you can do go to You will need to format your hard drive: but instead of clicking on those listed by the other user click the drive and clcik health it should tell you if there is a problem. If there was no problem then see if there is an extended drive it should show you the entire size of the drive and it may have not formatted the other partition so clcik partion the undefined space and that should do it. Partiton magic is a good program to do this as well but you must of clicked on something and changed it without knowing it hope this helps.



1) Right-Click on the “My Computer” icon either on your desktop or in the Start Menu and select “Manage.”



2) A new window titled “Computer Management” comes up. Select “Storage” from the left hand side by clicking it once, then select “Disk Management(local)” from the right side by double-clicking it.

1 minute ago

Answer 3

hi , i worked in hardware repair b4 and i can tell you all that will be done in that situation



follow these steps



in this situation we need to check if the lost space is dropped from partitioning or hidden or media lost its capacity or the media is damaged

these are 4 things to check



1-i'll start with the worse , you said windows is still working but the space is still lost , so the media is ok and your hard disk is not damaged



2-to check the media if it has hidden partitions or lost capacity

right_click my computer>manage>disk management

see if there is unallocated disk space

a-if there is right click it and Create partition

b-if there isn't unallocated space and there is partition but without drive letters right click them and use change drive letter

c-if there isn't any more space unallocated or hidden then move to step3

(follow these links for more information , and i suggest you print them

-http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

-http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/

-http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844/en-us

)



3-(pls, don't do any thing you don't understand) this is the most simple but hard part in the same time if your disk lost some of its capacity we need a tool to reset the hard medium size and here i'll tell you about the easiest tool which is : MHDD

-http://www.softpedia.com/get/System/Hard-Disk-Utils/MHDD.shtml

-http://mhdd.ru/download.shtml

-

you can find it here or any where all over the web , or it's included in hirens boot cd if you have one it will be great http://www.hiren.info/pages/bootcd

all you need is to assure that your disk is master or in sata0 or sata2 these are the only ports mhdd use

when you run the program choose the disk and at the prompter type: nhpa and press ENTER then y and y and you will have your disk full capacity



if you want to keep data i suggest you to try partition magic to check your partitions after finishing or try partition table doctor will be greater than partition magic in keeping data or restoring partitions from un allocated space ( google these if you want to know more)



(if you want to fix some bad sector in mhdd type scan then make the last option (on) and click CTRL+ENTER, it will scan your disk faster by thousands of times and repair bad sectors.)



if nothing works just return it to the one ho sold it to you if its new the he has to replace it for you

Answer 4

If your computer is old, it can be understand because the BIOS of old computer may not recognize hard-drive larger than 20 Gb.



What about the BIOS settings related to Hard-Drive ?. Does the BIOS recognize the SIZE of the drive Properly ?



Sometimes, BIOS of a motherboard have a flaw/bug (rarely happened relate to drive size recognition). Have you check the motherboard manufacturer's site for possibilities of Upgrading BIOS ?.

Answer 5

you may desire to to learn the partitioning of thatcontinual. examine out disk administration. See in case you have a team of unallocated area. in case you do, create a clean partition. The 20 GB partition could have been created basically for housing the OS data.

Answer 6

make sure their isn't any unpartioned space or that there is a hidden partion