Incorrect HD capacity

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dbventure

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Jan 28, 2014
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Have a hard drive that doesn't show the full capacity. It should be 250gb, but shows only 119gb.

I have a 250gb WD Scorpio 2.5" drive that shows an incorrect capacity. It comes up at as 119gb instead of the 250gb. It's a WD2500BEVE - 00WZT0. I've searched around and tried numerous things to find the missing gb's, but so far no luck.

My long term plan is to use this drive on an older laptop running Ubuntu. I've already tested it with the 119gb and it works fine, but I'd really like to have full access to the drive. I'm currently accessing the drive via usb cable from a Win 7 64 bit Home Premium computer.

I've searched for an answer, but haven't found a solution yet. Looking for whatever help I can find. Thanks!!
 
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hang-the-9
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popatim

popatim

Titan
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Dec 2, 2009
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use drive manager to have a look at the partitions that might or might not be on the drive. Run diskmgmt.msc

Then find the drive in the lower right pane and it will show you the basic partition layout. Perhaps the missing space is unallocated or in a format windows cant read (such as Linux). you can rt clickon these partitions to remove them nand then expand the existing or delete it and create one big one.
 
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dbventure

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Jan 28, 2014
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Popatim, Thanks for the reply. I've tried that multiple times from different machines running different OS's. No luck. The drive still only shows up as approximately 110 gb. For what it's worth, I have also tried using WD's Data Lifeguard Diagnostics in both DOS and Windows. Any other ideas?
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Mar 25, 2010
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Was it like this since the drive was new? To rule out anything funny with the enclosure, attach it as a secondary drive inside the computer case. You may want to use the diskpart utility to wipe any partitions on the drive and reset it to new. https://support.microsoft.com/kb/300415
Diskpart> select disk 3

Disk 3 is now the selected disk.

Diskpart> detail disk

The detail should show you all the partitions on the drive, there may be a hidden one there, or the drive was partitions wrong.
Or possibly there is just an error with the drive.

A Linux boot disk with a disk wipe option may help also. http://www.dban.org/

Just make sure you wipe the right drive or you'll kill your main drive.
 
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fzabkar

Judicious
Sep 22, 2010
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Was this drive in a Dell laptop? If so, then the drive may have a HPA.

Try the following tools to restore the full capacity:

HDD Capacity Restore Tool:
http://hddguru.com/software/2007.07.20-HDD-Capacity-Restore-Tool/

HDAT2:
http://www.hdat2.com/

HPARemove:
http://www.itsecure.at/hparemove-v0-2/
 
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dbventure

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Jan 28, 2014
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hang-the-9,
Good question, some more info: When I first got the drive, it was fine...250gb. At the time I had installed it in a Dell Inspiron 6000 with WinXP and had divided it into 2 partitions of approximately equal size. Everything was fine until after one of the reboots and then suddenly it wasn't all there.
Thanks for the input. I'll give your suggestions a try.
-dbventure
 
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dbventure

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Jan 28, 2014
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fzabkar,
It was from a Dell Inspiron 6000. Guess I should have said that in the first place. The drive was a replacement for the original that came with the laptop and I had divided it into two roughly equal partitions.
Thanks for your input...I'll give it a try.
-dbventure
 
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dbventure

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Jan 28, 2014
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fzabkar,
For what it's worth, I didn't clone the original drive, but had only done a clean install of WinXP onto the drive, partitioning it in half at the beginning.
Thanks,
dbventure
 
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hang-the-9

hang-the-9

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Mar 25, 2010
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There is your answer as to why it's not showing up the full capacity, it's just showing you the one partition. Although as to why you can't even see the second one in disk manager is a bit odd. This type of info needed to be in the first post, on too many questions most of the time spend is trying to find out exactly what happened in the first place before the issue started. You don't know how many times people post stuff like "I can't get my PC turned on, what is the issue?" and 5 posts later they finally say "Oh yea, I had lighting hit my house and my power supply was smoking".
 
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