Hard Drive problem.

S

Sam Rowlands

New Member
I recently formatted my main hard drive, C, and whilst I was doing so decided to add another, from my old pc, now labelled D. For a couple of days all was well, then I got the message on trying to open D:

"The disk in D is not formatted. Do you wish to format it now?"

Or something similar. After trying various solutions, I eventually formatted the drive, as there was nothing on there that couldn't be reinstalled easily.

However, now I worry that something sinister has happened to my second hard drive. Predictably enough, upon exploring the drive, no files are shown. However, in the properties window, I get the following information:

Used space: 65.4 MB
Free space: 31.4 GB
Capacity: 31.4 GB

IIRC, it's about a 75 GB hard drive. Definately over 60 GB.

Has anyone got any idea what's going on? If it helps at all, I believe the amount of free space that was on the hard drive BEFORE the error was roughly, if not exactly similar to 31 GB. Hmm.

Any help appreciated!

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I boot from my main hard drive, C. My D drive has the problems.

I explore it just by opening it up. There is literally nothing in there to be seen, and yet it still claims the capacity is only 31GB. This is really, really, really confusing to me. Did an error somehow wipe over half of the storage space from my HDD? I've never heard of that happening.

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How did you format the D Drive - via installed Windows or the Windows Setup CD? If via an installed Windows, it's possible that the Drive had a file system on it that Windows can't natively recognize. If you don't mind a bit of work, here's what I would try...

Unplug your C Drive and hook up the D drive. Put the Setup CD in and boot to it. After it loads, go through the pages until you see the formatting area. Every partition on the drive will be shown, both type of file system and size. It should clear up where the missing space went.
 
In the end it was a case of me clicking "Yes" when it asked me if I want to format. So, via installed windows I guess. The thing is, before it started asking me if I wanted to format the drive, I could view/use all my data on the D drive - in the exact same configuration. I'll have a go at hooking D: up as primary later, but it doesn't have windows or anything on it!

But in short; have you heard of cases where half of a HDD has mysteriously vanished? And do you think the data is at all recoverable?

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I'll have a go at hooking D: up as primary later, but it doesn't have windows or anything on it!
Click to expand...

That's fine - you won't be booting to the Drive, you'll be booting to the Windows Setup CD, which in turn will give you control over the drive through it's GUI.

But in short; have you heard of cases where half of a HDD has mysteriously vanished? And do you think the data is at all recoverable?
Click to expand...

Yes, that's why I suggested installing just D and using the Setup CD. There are several types of file systems that Windows cannot read without the use of third-party software. Let's say you have a 100 GB Drive: 20 GB is formatted as FAT32, 50 is formatted as NTFS, and the remainder is formatted as ext3. You know the Drive is 100 GB total, but if you hook it up as a secondary drive to a computer that already has Windows installed, you will only see the FAT and NTFS partitions - Windows will not recognize the ext3 part and thus think there's nothing there.

The Windows Setup CD will show you every partition on the Drive itself. You can delete any partition you want, and whatever you delete will be clumped together as unformatted space; however you will only be able to format new partitions as FAT32 or NTFS, again because those are 'Windows' partitions. So let's say for some reason, you're using the CD and see 4 partitions: FAT32, NTFS, Recovery, and unformatted space. You go and delete the NTFS one and that is added to the unformatted space. If you delete every partition, you can choose to make one giant one utilizing all of the unformatted space. The result = 1 large FAT32 or NTFS partition, all of which is recognized by Windows.
 
I know this is sorta hijacking but how would u find the lost space on the drive with the os loaded on it.
 
csmdew said:
I know this is sorta hijacking but how would u find the lost space on the drive with the os loaded on it.
Click to expand...

Not jacking at all - it's related:)

There's software that will allow Windows to see other types of file systems, but judging from the first two Posts the OP made, I didn't want to throw both ways into the mix at once and open the door for too much confusion, so I opted for the Setup CD way first.

The program in question is called Ext2 IFS, downloadable here: http://www.fs-driver.org/index.html. Very self-explanatory Install process, and easy to use. To the OP, I'd still suggest going the Setup CD route first, and trying this program after you fixed the issue, or if the Setup CD way isn't working out for you (some people just don't like text-based stuff like that).

Edit: A quick note... I use this program to recognize non-Windows file systems all the time, which it does a great job at. After Windows sees the other types of file systems, you can select them and format them to a Windows-based one. However, I'm not certain if you can merge the two partitions afterwards with this program - I'm gonna say no, but I've honestly never had the need to look and see if it was possible. For merging the two, you'll still need another third-party program. Of course, if there's no info on either partition you want to merge, the Setup CD would still be far quicker.
 
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Thanks for the replies. I'm having virus troubles at the minute, so I'm dealing with those, THEN I'm going to get around to trying to reclaim the other half of my D: drive.

I thought trawling through windows recovery console was bad enough... Some of the viruses on my PC right now are really awful.

On further inspection though, I never had a Windows Setup CD; only an Advent system recovery CD that came with the PC. I've used this to reinstall windows though, so will it do?

Sorry I'm a bit slow with computers, I mean I'd like to think I'm pretty good with them usually, but I've never come across this!

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Usually it's a sign that the drive (D) is dying.
Find out who manufactured it and download their hard drive fitness test.
If it fails then you'll know it's dying.
 
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