my comp recognizes my 15GB hard drive as an 8 GB, how do i fix this?

[fakepurseninja]

I reformatted my PC, and windows says my hard drive is a 8 gig, but its really a 15 gb. how do i fix this?

 

[sohcrates]

can you give us more info here?

what motherboard? did you format off a boot floppy?

sounds at first glance that maybe you're mobo can't support drives greater than 8 gigs. is it old? did you have a 15gb drive working in that computer before?

 

[fakepurseninja]

<< can you give us more info here?

what motherboard? did you format off a boot floppy?

sounds at first glance that maybe you're mobo can't support drives greater than 8 gigs. is it old? did you have a 15gb drive working in that computer before? >>


Im not sure about the motherboard. but i did format off a boot floppy.
I had the 15 GB installed about 2 years ago, and it worked.

 

[ZZZZZZ]

Depending on your MB a BIOS update may fix the problem if this is a newly installed drive. If it was recognized correctly in this system before you formatted it then try doing an FDISK. You may also want to manually configre the HD in the BIOS to see if that resolves the problem

 

[sohcrates]

ok.

did you partition with fdisk? or just type basically "format c:" ?

sounds like you should boot off the disk again and this time use fdisk to check out your partitions. if necessary, you will need to delete your current partition(s) and creat a new 15 gb one.

have you ever used fdisk before?

 

[ZZZZZZ]

Did you just put the drive in the sstem now after 2 years or was it in the system for the whole 2 years?

 

[fakepurseninja]

<< ok.

did you partition with fdisk? or just type basically "format c:" ?

sounds like you should boot off the disk again and this time use fdisk to check out your partitions. if necessary, you will need to delete your current partition(s) and creat a new 15 gb one.

have you ever used fdisk before? >>


first i formatted. then i went into fdisk and there were no partitions on the drive. FDISK recognized the drive as a 8 GB too.

 

[fakepurseninja]

<< Did you just put the drive in the sstem now after 2 years or was it in the system for the whole 2 years? >>


it was in the system for two years

 

[sohcrates]

well, there has to be at least ONE partition on there...otherwise there'd be nothing to format.

my suggestion is to boot off a floppy...then go into fdisk

hit "4" to view current partitions and you'll see what you have. most likely it's just one 8 gb one. in which case you'll want to go back to the main fdisk menu, delete your main partition, and create a new partition using all available space...and make sure it works out to 15 gb.

 

[fakepurseninja]

<< well, there has to be at least ONE partition on there...otherwise there'd be nothing to format.

my suggestion is to boot off a floppy...then go into fdisk

hit "4" to view current partitions and you'll see what you have. most likely it's just one 8 gb one. in which case you'll want to go back to the main fdisk menu, delete your main partition, and create a new partition using all available space...and make sure it works out to 15 gb. >>


yeah i did all that, but it still was read as an 8 GB

 

[sohcrates]

so then...when you were formatting did it say "formatting 15 gb" ? (it doesn't give it in gb, i know, but it would say something like 150000....)

 

[fakepurseninja]

<< so then...when you were formatting did it say "formatting 15 gb" ? (it doesn't give it in gb, i know, but it would say something like 150000....) >>

nope, it said 8gb

 

[sohcrates]

allright...now we're getting somewhere....

did you install it originally? did you fdisk and format it originally (back when it was running fine as a 15 gb drive)?

there's no easy way out of this...you have to go back into fdisk and re-create it. software such as partition magic might allow you to increase you're partition size w/out re-installing, but unless you own that software, you're kinda stuck.

 

[fakepurseninja]

<< allright...now we're getting somewhere....

did you install it originally? did you fdisk and format it originally (back when it was running fine as a 15 gb drive)?

there's no easy way out of this...you have to go back into fdisk and re-create it. software such as partition magic might allow you to increase you're partition size w/out re-installing, but unless you own that software, you're kinda stuck. >>


i just remembered that when my friend installed installed in 2 years ago, that we had the same problem. i dont remember how he fixed it, id ask him, but hes not online right now, and i dont know his email address.