Recovering missing hard disk space

[Xanin]

I recently formatted my desktop PC, and reinstalled WinXP Home Edition (SP1; need to update to SP2 soon). However, halfway through the installation I realised I was using the XP CD from my laptop, not the one provided to me with my desktop; for some reason my Mesh desktop only likes the original XP CD. Anyway, I couldn't exit out of the Windows installation, so had to restart and reformat and reinstall using the correct CD.

Upon doing this, I noticed my hard drive was 30 gigs smaller; from 160 to 130. The partition I created the first XP installation on was around 30 gigs, so I'm thinking the Windows from the second installation isn't viewing this partition as free space, as it has Windows part-installed.

I'm not sure if I'm talking crap here, or put this in the wrong section, but I would really like my 30 gigs back Any help would be appreciated

Thank you!

[spacesurfer]

Right click on My Computer. Click on Manage. Go to Disk Management under Storage.

Do you see your 30 GB partition as unpartitioned space? If so, you'll have to use a partition manager to resize your 130 GB partition to include that 30 GB.

Otherwise, you can format that 30GB unpartitioned space and Windows will assign a drive letter to it--you'll get a second partition.

Anyway, since your OS is already installed, you really can't recover it with windows, you'll have to use third party partition manager like Acronis Disk Director or Norton Partition Magic to resize your partition. These tools are designed to preserve your data. I would still backup before doing it, though.

[Zxian]

You'll have to re-partition your hard drive like you want it with a third-party program. There are several free ones out there, but Acronis Disk Director is the best one I've found (note: it's payware).

Does your desktop XP CD give you the option to partition your drives, or does it just start installing? If it's the first one, you could start from scratch and just format the whole lot and go from there. You could do that in any case with a third-party tool, but having it on the XP CD is a nice feature.

[Xanin]

The missing 30 gigs isn't actually visible by windows. Windows reads the drive as 130 gigs total, as does Powerquest Partition Magic. I tried using Partition'Table Doctor and it detects the missing space, and labels it as 'Free', but I'm not sure when to go from there, as PTD doesn't have the partition resizing tool that Partition Magic does.

When using the Windows partition manager it only detects my current 30 GB Win partition and my 100 GB file-storage partition, and doesn't notice the rest, so I doubt I'd be able to format the whole drive and include the missing 30 GB, as Windows doesn't think it's there.

A friend of mine mentioned something about hard drives above 130 gb not being detected, could this be anything to do with it?

I'll give that program a try, hopefully it will do something. Otherwise I'm stumped :/

Thanks for your help guys, I really appreciate it.

[Shindo_Hikaru]

Microsoft Windows XP (all Versions) does have a flaw ready drives biggere then 128 if you do not have SP1a installed, If your orginial setup disk has in the past detected the full size of the disk it is not a matter of windows not seeing it. If you do not have Norton Partition Magic (formerly known as Power Quest) then i do recommend that you reinstall your system with the correct XP CD, if this does not solve your problem, then as a recommendation, i would get a thrid party partition software. I will further investiagte this problem and attemp to provide you with any other answer i may find.

[Xanin]

I see, you've clarified a lot for me Shindo Hikaru. My XP CD is fairly old, and I don't have the internet at my address yet, so am unable to update to SP1a or above. My last install of Windows was my brother's copy of XP Pro SP2, but he since required the CD so I went back to my version of XP Home. Perhaps this is the reason why size has changed. I will see if I can update to SP2. Thanks again for the help

[jaclaz]

Even without upgrading, you can fix the 48bit LBA problem:

http://www.48bitlba.com/

You can, even without upgrading to the full SPx, install 48 bit LBA enabled files and drivers and enable it in the Registry.

jaclaz

[Xanin]

I've got it all sorted now guys, I downloaded the SP2 update onto my laptop and transferred it to my desktop, and it sorted everything I now have my full 160 GB Thanks very much for all your help

[Andromeda43]

Gee, I'm sure glad I read the last line in this thread before commenting.

SP1 had that 130 (something) HD space limit. SP2 does not.

Sp2 just fixes a lot of problems that were present in SP1.

Anyone with an old SP1 windows CD and a SP2 CD should immediately do a Slipstream of the two and get them into one XP/SP2 disk.

I found a very simple way to do this with all DOS commands. The instructions only took two small paragraphs.

The result was that I now have an XP/SP2 CD that I can use any time I need it.

Congratulations on getting your space back.

Blessings,

Andromeda43 B)