Internal hard drive showing but only 256MB

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

I have a WD 1TB hard drive that was fully working showing the full capacity of 1TB (931.51 GB) (it shows up in BIOS, in Windows File Explorer or This PC and Disk Management). Now for some reason, I can only see 256MB of space left out of 256MB on This PC. However, if I check disk management the drive shows that there is 931.51 GB on the drive yet its only showing 256MB on This PC. It says that the drive is healthy (Primary Partition). I have a lot of data on the drive that I can't delete. I was wondering if there is a way I can recover the data from the drive and make 931.51 GB visible again on This PC. The file type on the drive is FAT32, not sure why its different from the rest which is NTFS.

My Specs:
Asus Maximus IX Apex
I5 6600K
HyperX Fury 16 GB (2X8) @ 2133 MHz
Corsair H115i PRO
Strix GTX 1070 OC
Corsair HX 750i
Samsung SSD 850 EVO 500GB
Samsung SSD 840 EVO 250GB
WDC WD2003FZEX-00Z4SA0
Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2 250
Windows 10 Pro

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

So that we're all on the same page, please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

How do I do that?

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

Detailed instructions on posting images on Tom's hardware.
http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2580030/detailed-instructions-posting-images-tom-hardware.html

Basically, save a screencap.
Upload it to somewhere like imgur.com.
Post the link here.

TechyInAZ · Sep 4, 2018

use snipping tool (search for it in windows, or go to windows accessories in the programs menu).

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

This PC and Disk Management Link: https://imgur.com/LpllmX9

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

What was the last thing you did before this happened?
FAT32 does not work with a 1TB drive. And that can't happen on its own.

(we'll get into the use of A as a drive letter later)

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

I was transferring a file to another drive.

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

uchennawork :

In no way would that cause the drive to reformat itself.

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

Then I changed another drive's format from GPT to MBR. But I didn't touch drive A.

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

uchennawork :

1. Why would you do that?
2. Too many things going on at once.
3. Where is the actual backup for this data?

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

1. Because I had to change the format so my laptop would accept the drive. When I was installing Windows 10 for scratch with a new drive.
2. I had to do it from an old drive
3. I don't have any data backup.

kerberos_20 · Sep 4, 2018

try to change drive letter
oh wait...its fat32...run check disc

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

If I change from FAT32 to NFTS would that help?
And how do I run 'check disk'

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

So...

You used this 1TB external drive as a drive to install Windows 10 with?
Yes, that will reformat it to FAT32, and wipe out all data on that drive. It warns you of this at least a couple of times.
All data.

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

No.
I didn't use the 1TB drive to install windows. And I didn't format the drive. I did that on another completely different drive.

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

uchennawork :

I'm just trying to figure out how this 1TB drive got formatted to FAT32.
FAT32 has a max volume size of 137GB. If it was formatted FAT32 from the start, you would never have seen it as a 1TB drive.

Possibly EaseUS partition Recovery?
https://www.easeus.com/partition-recovery/index.htm

This may or may not work.

But, success or fail....you really need to start a good backup routine.

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

I have tried using mini tool partition wizard free and I was able to see the data on the drive. But that space was unlocated.

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

uchennawork :

"see the data"
Were you able to copy it to some other drive?

uchennawork · Sep 4, 2018

No, it wouldn't allow me, but I can see everything that was previously on the drive

USAFRet · Sep 4, 2018

uchennawork :

You can see it, but you could not copy it?
Try the other application I listed above, to possibly recover the original partition. This will require recovering to some other drive.

uchennawork · Sep 5, 2018

I downloaded MiniTool Power Data Recovery and I was able to recover all my data from the drive successfully. Then I used Disk management to wipe the drive and set the file type to NTFS and now I have the full capacity of 1TB (931.5 GB).

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Internal hard drive showing but only 256MB

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