fdisk ... then 20 gig = 2 gigs ?!? How do I get back the "missing" 18 gigs ??

[lt123]

Just moved a 20 gig HD from my old system to my new system (both running Windows98)

Did an fdisk, rebooted, then formatted, and it asked me if I wanted to format my 8 gig HD. I assumed it was a mistake, and said OK. Now my HD was coming up as only 8 gigs.

So, I tried again. Fdisk, restart, and format c: -- now my 20 gig HD is only showing 2 gigs!

What am I doing wrong? How do I get back the "missing" 18 gigs?

I'm running (my new system) an AMD 900 MHz on a KT7-RAID. All that's installed is my video card and ethernet card.

Thanks in advance.

 

[compuwiz1]

FDisk it again from a Win98 startup disk, and choose enable large disk support when prompted.

If you fdisked it with a win95 floppy, you probably did not have that option. Once, you fdisk it, then you have to restart the system (power down), then boot from floppy once more and format the drive.

 

[TheCorm]

Fdisk is quite a basic program, if you can, get hold of Partition Magic that will allow you to set up your hard drive partitions much easier, I would recommend around 6 partitions for your drive.

If you can't, do try the large disk support though.

Corm

 

[Durron]

Fdisk may be basic but it gets the job done and with little work.

Just read the damn screen before you go past it (ie: "Do you want to enable large disk support?&quot

 

[Mday]

yeah, i think "enable large disk support" was not turned on. this makes fdisk use fat32 whenever possible which allows for partitions larger than 2 GB. you did not lose the 18 GB, it's still there, it's just not being recognized.

 

[lt123]

Actually the "enable large disk support" was turned on. I ended up just using the software that came with the Maxor drive, which worked.

Maybe there was something wrong with my Win98 Start-up disk.

Thanks again

lt123

 

[psteng19]

LOL, when I read your post, it reminded me of how freaked I was when I formatted the work computer, F-disked, and only 2 gigs showed up on a 10 gig drive. Here's what you did wrong (I'm pretty sure). In one of the stages during F-disk (after the primary DOS partition, during the extended partition), you were asked whether you want to use the remaining portion of your drive. I was planning on 3 partions, and since I was only up to my second partition, I answered NO. That's the mistake. Answer YES there. I thought it was asking whether I want to allocate all my space in the second partition, leaving me no space for my 3rd. What it's actually asking is whether you want to use the rest of your space in the extended partition. Hope this is the solution.