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General discussion

New 1TB Hard drive only shows 113GB Available

Dec 28, 2010 4:22PM PST

I have a relatively modern computer with a 250GB Hard Drive in it. It was showing that it was nearly full so I bought another 1TB Hard Drive. I installed it and started transferring files over. After transferring 113GB over it also showed as full. When I right click and select properties for both the old C: drive and the new D: drive. They both show 113GB Capacity when one should show 250GB and the other 1TB. I don't believe either have any partitions on them. What is wrong and how do I fix it?

Discussion is locked

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Re: 1TB drive
Dec 28, 2010 4:27PM PST

A drive must have at least 1 partition. But it may have more.

Go into Disk Management and tell us what it says about both the old and the new drive. What partitions of what size and how many unallocated space? Also please tell your OS (Vista SP1) and the history of this 'relatively modern computer': did it come with Vista or is it an ungraded XP?

http://www.windowsreference.com/windows-vista/how-to-use-disk-management-in-vista/ tells more.

Kees

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Missing capacity on hard drives
Dec 28, 2010 4:40PM PST

Thanks Kees,

You are correct. Disk management says that C: has 113.2GB main partition and D: has 112.85GB Main partition. Unallocated space is 931.51GB.

The OS is Vista SP2 it came with Vista on it. It is an AMD athlon(tm) 64 X 2 Dual Core Processor 4200+ 2.2 GHZ with 3 GB ram. 32 Bit operating system.

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Re: unallocated
Dec 28, 2010 4:45PM PST

Then use that same Disk Management to delete that 112.85GB partition and make a new one that uses the whole 1 TB disk. Be sure to format it NTFS if you only want to use it on a Windows PC with XP or higher.

If your c: really is 250 GB it should have unallocated space also. But I don't know if Disk Management will let you extend the current partition. Then either you could make a new one on the c: (so it will have 2 partitions = 2 drive letters) or use another partition management program.

Kees

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determining the capacity of the hard drive volume
Dec 29, 2010 12:33AM PST

Thanks Kees, this is a huge help. Do you need to keep some of the hard drive unallocated for programs to use on the C: drive? Or can you allocate as much as is allowed on both the C: drive with windows etc running on it and the D: drive with just data storage running on it?

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Allocate all.
Dec 29, 2010 12:42AM PST

No need to keep part of the disk unused, I'd say.

Kees

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BEFORE DELETING ANYTHING ...
Dec 29, 2010 2:55AM PST

You state "Disk management says that C: has 113.2GB main partition and D: has 112.85GB Main partition. Unallocated space is 931.51GB."

Looking at that and seeing that you indicate a 250 GB drive it really LOOKS like the original 250 GB drive was partitioned into drive C: and drive D: and their sizes seem to confirm this, especially when you realize that 931.51 GB is a FULL TEREBYTE!

In Disk Management's lower pane you should see Disk 0 (showing something around 227 GB) with C: and D: partitions

Then below that you should see Disk 1 showing 931.51 GB (that number indicates that the one terebyte drive has NEVER BEEN PARTITIONED as it is a full terebyte) and the whole drive unallocated. If it is showing there as Disk 1 it has already been initialized.

Now you can create a new partition however large you want it to be (I'll suggest a single PRIMARY partition using the full amount of unallocated space). After partitioning you need to FORMAT the partition then Windows Explorer can see the drive and it is available to use.

This link might be real helpful -
http://help.artaro.eu/index.php/windows-vista/essential-windows-vista-administration/disk-management-in-windows-vista.html

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That's all quite plausible.
Dec 29, 2010 5:04AM PST

It fits. The only strange thing is that the OP knew he had a 250 GB disk, and never noticed or wondered he could only use 112 GB.
He'll be glad to have not only a c: and a d:, but also an e: after making his new disk ready.

Kees

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done and done... thanks for the help
Dec 29, 2010 5:47AM PST

Have the old drive with virtually all of the 250GB available for use and the new drive is finishing formatting with nearly 1TB worth of storage. The original drive was partitioned into two drives. I deleted the unused portion and extended the used portion to include the deleted partition. Thanks for the help.

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(NT) Thanks for telling. Glad we could help.
Dec 29, 2010 5:50AM PST
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Like Kees indicates ...
Dec 30, 2010 9:37AM PST

we are always happy to see a happy camper and you did the work, we just pointed you down the right road.

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missing Gigs in Hard Drive
Jul 13, 2012 9:30AM PDT

There is a very simple solution to this. Much simpler than other suggestions here. While these other suggestions will work for multiple drives, a single drive can also be extended. Simply go to disc manager, right click on the drive and hit extend. There are also helpful suggestions on youtube and wikianswers. I've got a 1T hard drive which only displays 127G so I'm going to extend my own hard drive. If that doesn't work, I'll try the suggestions here as well.
Thanks for the input
lady_cherston

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That sounds like
Jul 14, 2012 9:37PM PDT

"I've got a 1T hard drive which only displays 127G"

That sounds like the old "XP (no Service Packs), doesn't recognise drives larger than 127 GB" problem

Installing SP1a or any SP after that fixed that.

And yet, you're posting into the Vista forum. No such problem like that exists with Vista.

Mark