Hi.

Under compmgmt.msc, disk management gives 2 different sizes for the C: partition. The upper window says it's 6.83gb (wrong) and the lower windows says it's 11.44gb which is closer to the size that gparted made it. Easeus Partition Master says the C: partition is 10.53gb and this is reasonably consistent with the 11.44gb reported in the lower compmgmt.msc window.

Why does XP insist that the partition is only 6gb in size and therefore tells me it is almost full at just 5.5gb used? I've done some searching around and the suggestion is that the cluster size may be too big. Can it really account for the missing 5gb?

Is there any way to reclaim the missing space or is it the norm to have 4 or 5gb get swallowed along the way?

I haven't been able to find a free way of resizing clusters in ntfs, so I can't prove or disprove that theory.

All help really appreciated.

Regards.

Can you post a screenshot?

Here you go. Screen Shot attached.

Thanks in advance.

Try a tool like TestDisk, this could be caused by (MFT) corruption.

I'd say it's either a driver issue (possible) or it really is an MFT problem. Would be interesting to see what diskpart says the drive size is, or what chkdsk says the size is.

Beats: I'll have a go at TestDisk and let you know what it says.

Cluberti: I've never used diskaprt before, so I'll have a look at it and let you know what it says. I presume the command to run is: "detail partition"?

Kind regards.

Beats: I'll have a go at TestDisk and let you know what it says.

Cluberti: I've never used diskaprt before, so I'll have a look at it and let you know what it says. I presume the command to run is: "detail partition"?

Kind regards.

Try the following:

sel vol c
detail disk
detail vol
detail part

You can also try

list vol
list disk

Tripredacus,

Thanks for pointer. Maybe this is a stupid question, but I don't recognise those commands as DOS so I don't know where / how to enter them. Also, if I run them, what should I do with the results since (presumably) they will just throw up information and not actually change anything.

Thanks.

Tripredacus,

Thanks for pointer. Maybe this is a stupid question, but I don't recognise those commands as DOS so I don't know where / how to enter them. Also, if I run them, what should I do with the results since (presumably) they will just throw up information and not actually change anything.

Thanks.

Those are diskpart commands: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415

Ok, I ran diskpart with suggested commands. Here's what I got back...

Detail Disk:

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

Volume 2 C Windows XP NTFS Partition 11 GB Healthy System

Detail vol:

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

Disk 0 Online 186GB 0 B

Detail part:

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

Volume 2 C Windows XP NTFS Partition 11GB Health System

List vol:

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

Volume 2 C Windows XP NTFS Partition 11 GB Healthy System

List disk:

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt

Disk 0 Online 186GB 0B

I also ran Testdisk and tried a few options but I hadn't a clue what I was doing with it. No change in reported partition size.

Is there anything else I can try?

Diskpart will be accurate, meaning something is causing diskmgmt.msc to fail somehow. What does Windows Explorer show as the C: volume size and available space? At this point, either you ignore diskmgmt.msc, or you'll have to rebuild.

Explorer shows the following:

C: volume size: 6.83GB

available space: 1.21GB

So, is reformatting and re-loading XP is the only way forward?

Thanks.

Well, I'd say you've got potential corruption or driver problems. Assuming you can't update the driver or replace it for the hard disk controller and chipset, unfortunately I'd say you probably need to flatten that partition and use the XP setup to create a new one in it's place.

Sincere thanks to all who responded. I have since wiped that partition and reloaded XP. Problem solved. 10GB+ in the C: Partition.

Regards.