Hard Drive capacity shrunk after performing restore.

[tom97531]

I have 40 GB Emachine T2542 Desktop with Windows XP. I did a restore, now my only drive shows:

2.57 GB USED
3.19 GB FREE
5.77 GB TOTAL CAPACITY

I tried restoring it again with the same results. This happened to me a couple years ago when it was still under warranty and tech support resolved my problem, but I don't remember how he did it exactly.

Please help!

[JJ 3000]

When you say restore, are you referring to System Restore or a clean install of Windows?

[tom97531]

When you say restore, are you referring to System Restore or a clean install of Windows?

Not just a System Restore to an earlier time. I did a complete restore using the 2 restore disks it came with ...back to the original factory settings.

[Geek-9pm]

May I offer a suggestion. After many mistakable and goofs, I have learned that when it doubt get another Hard Drive and try it again. Using a blank HDD the is nothing to lose but some time spent learning how it works.

[Veltas]

May I offer a suggestion. After many mistakable and goofs, I have learned that when it doubt get another Hard Drive and try it again. Using a blank HDD the is nothing to lose but some time spent learning how it works.

I agree.  Honest to God this sounds like a bad sector problem though, so in my opinion you're kind of screwed.  How old is the HDD anyway?  Sounds old enough to suffer from bad sectors to me, and I can't think of any other way you'd just suddenly lose space after doing anything.

So yeah, I'd back up what little might be on this HDD and then stick in a new HDD and install onto there.

[dahlarbear]

1.  Wild Guess.  Maybe there was a "hidden" restore/recovery partition (which generally runs about 6 GB) and somehow the restore/recovery discs picked that partition in which to load the operating system.

2.  Disk Management.  Use Windows "Disk Management" utility to view the properties, partitions, and free space (or unallocated space) of the disk.

Physical disk should appear left hand side, bottom half of display -  probably as "Disk 0".  What does it say there, something like:
     o  Basic
     o  37.25 GB
     o  Online

Does the missing capacity show up as free (or unallocated) space on the graphic representation of the drive?

To access:  Start -> Run -> type "diskmgmt.msc" without quote, press <Enter>.

[Allan]

Download treesize to see what's going on: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

[tom97531]

So yeah, I'd back up what little might be on this HDD and then stick in a new HDD and install onto there.

Computer's maybe 6 years old. It was bottom of the line when I bought it. Prefer not  to put any money into this one if I can avoid it. It's a second computer my kids use for basic stuff ... word processor, YouTube and storing music for Zune (this is what takes up the most space). Worse comes to worst, I'll deal with what I have and maybe get a flash drive for their music or something. When I get called back to work (hopefully soon), I may just replace it.

Use Windows "Disk Management" utility to view the properties, partitions, and free space (or unallocated space) of the disk.

Reads:
Disk 0           |     Primary Partition        |        Unallocated
Basic            |     (c:)                         |
37.27 GB      |     5.77 GB NTFS             |        31.50 GB
Online           |    Healthy (system)        |        Unallocated

Download treesize to see what's going on: http://www.jam-software.com/freeware/index.shtml

I downloaded TreeSize Free V2.40 and opened the program, but not sure what I'm looking for.

[patio]

Your HDD was not setup properly on the recovery...
You have 2 choices:
Use Disk Management to add the unallocated space to C:
Start over and at setup delete the partitions and create 1 40G partition.

[BC_Programmer]

the reason is simple: the ghost image that we restored in the other thread from the recovery disc was set to 5.77GB; so that's all that was used.

Anyway, Windows XP's disk management is limited, and (AFAIK) offers no way to extend a volume.

However, the command-line equivalent, DISKPART, does.

try this:

Start->Run type "cmd" and press enter.

Now, in the command window, type

Code: [Select]

diskpart
diskpart starts... now, use the following. The prompts should match what you see:

Code: [Select]

DISKPART>Select Disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected Disk.

DISKPART> Select Partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected Partition.

DISKPART>extend


Once DISKPART finishes extending the volume, type "EXIT" to return to the command prompt, and exit again to leave the window. I don't know if a reboot may be necessary.

[tom97531]

Use Disk Management to add the unallocated space to C:

I used Disk Management like you suggested and used the unallocated space to create an E drive and it did the job. Then I read BC_Programmer's Diskpart suggestion, deleted the E drive and tried his idea. That woked too.

Either way, I'm back in business. Problem resolved. Thanks to all once again.

[JJ 3000]

Anyway, Windows XP's disk management is limited, and (AFAIK) offers no way to extend a volume.

Of course it does. You can extend volumes with XP and windows 2k pro. XP professional even supports dynamic disks.

[dahlarbear]

Yes, you can extend volumes within Windows XP Disk Management; but the "rules" are not simple and prevent its application in the case presented by the Original Poster (OP).  They do not permit you to extend the system or boot partition (and I'm amazed "diskpart" command permits it).  (At least that's the answer they want on the WinXP certification test.)

See How To Use Disk Management to Configure Dynamic Disks in Windows XP.

NOTE:

    * You can only extend NTFS volumes, or volumes that are not yet formatted with a file system.
    * A volume can be extended only if there is enough available disk space.
    * If you upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP, you can extend simple and spanned volumes only if the volume is created on a dynamic disk in Windows XP. Simple or spanned volumes that result from a basic to dynamic disk conversion in Windows 2000 cannot be extended.
    * You cannot extend the system or boot volume.