This doesnt make sense

I read the thread by Phredrick about the hard disk problem and it reminded me that i have a similar problem. The thing is that i have 2 160GB HD by Samsung (SP1604N). Windows shows me that one is 149GB large, this is my backup drive, and the other, the one with win xp (SP2) installed on it, is apparently 127GB big.... i dont understand why there is this difference between these 2 since they are exaclty the same Hard Disks.. it would be great if anyone could help me recover the 22GB which i am unable to use, after all it is quite a lot of space!

 

There must be someone who know about this sort of problem. Please tell me anything that i could try to get this fixed

 

read this thread:

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=56564

 

Thanks for your reference to the other thread, however it doesnt help me because i have SP1 and SP2 installed. I checked the registry and 'EnableBigLba' is set to '1', so it should be working. And it does work for my backup drive. But it doesnt work for the one i have windows xp installed on...is there anything else i can do about this or will i just have to accept this malfunction?

 

is your computer, or has your hard disk come from a package PC with a restore disk?

if so they sometimes have hidden partition with files needed to restore your computer, this has been the problem when i have encountered it before.

 

If you installed XP onto a drive hooked to a serial ata or raid controller, you will need to update those drivers.

Sp1, or 2 wouldn't help you in the least bit in that case.

Keep in mind that you will never get 160gb worth of that drive.

There is a certain amount of unuseable sectors on every drive.

Then, you must consider the manufacturer size conversion error.

They see 160gb as 160,000mb, which is not true.

 

the samsung website here recomends downloading service pack 1, so is obviously out of date.

At the bottom of that page is a link to send an email to their support staff, worth a try!

 

when you look at your drive in disk management ... do you notive any unallocated spece?

 

Thanks for you replies!

1) I do have one of these restore disks, however am i reluctant to use it since i dont want or cant afford to risk formatting my C drive...

2) I know how to get to Disk Management, (Click Start, click Run, type compmgmt.msc, and then click OK), but have no idea what to look for there... never used it before

3) I will try to get an answer from Samsung, but am not too optimistic about that

 

well .. (if you know this then it'll just be a rehash) first you must understand the difference between the physical drive size and the partition size ... 137GB is the partition size of your problem drive ... now you want to go into disk management and see if that partition is the same size as the physical drive ... you might notice a space labeled 'unallocated space' ... this is an unformatted portion of your drive ... hopefully it will be as easy as formatting the unallocated space ... it's alot easier to do with partition magic if you feel the urge to spend any money

 

Some manufacturers create a hidden partition on he disk that contains all the files needed to restore your computer, only the restore disk can access it.

i don't know for sure that thats your problem, but it could be.
if it is, deleting the partition and freeing the space could mean your restore disk will never work!

 

which is irritating when the HDD goes belly up. Then the restore disk won't work when a new drive gets put in. A friend of mine is still arguing (almost a year) with the company they bought their computer from about getting an OEM disc or a restore disk that doesn't depend on the partition.

 

~Pyrate~ , i think u found the solution to my problem. When i checked the Disk Management i found that there are about 22GB unallocated.. iim gonna try to partiotion it... hope it works

 

Now, i can finally make use of the lost space, it is as if i have a third hard disk, 2 partitions made from drice C. Is there any way i can merge them so that i have only one partition on it including the 22GB that i now have in a 2 partition?

 

the only way I know of is by using partition magic ... there might be another app that does it but that's the only one I know of

 

I got myself partition magic and it worked perfectly, solved the problem in no time.. thanks a lot for the help!