37 25 GB unallocated on a 1TB external hard drive

[angeloklok01]

Hello,

I have a 1 TB external hard drive (Hitachi NESO 2501S).
its showing that only 37.25 GB is unallocated.

Im running Windows XP service pack 3.

What do i need to do to be able to get around 980GB to 1TB as unallocated?

 

[nikorr]

How did u get there, can u post screenshot of Computer Management window?

 

[jsc]

angeloklok, I think you are confused. "Unallocated" means that the storage space cannot be used, so you want to minimize the amount of unallocated space.

(Simplification follows)
Let's say you start off with a brand new 1 TB drive. The whole drive is unallocated. You want to divide it in half, so you partition it into two equal parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning

All of the storage space is still unallocated. So you designate the first half of the drive as the primary partition and format it. Now half of the space is allocated (and, after formatting, useable) to the primary partition. The second half is still unallocated and therefore unusable.

What to do with the 37 GB? You can either turn it into a small partition or you can back up any data on it and start over by partitioning the drive how you want. You can treat it as one single large drive or you can partition it into several smaller logical drives.

 

[mouse24]

i think he means that he only has 943gb of space available and he wants the remainder... i think... if thats the case, its normal... the marketing companies just round up sort of. they use GiB while we use GB

 

[angeloklok01]

Hi Guys
Thanks for the answers.

When I initially plugged the device in. It was in RAW format and unallocated space was set at around 900 GB.

After Initializing the Device the unallocated space became 37.25GB.

I could only use 37.25 GB out of the 1TB. There were no other partitions and none hidden.

I think I did something wrong....

 

[angeloklok01]

i think he means that he only has 943gb of space available and he wants the remainder... i think... if thats the case, its normal... the marketing companies just round up sort of. they use GiB while we use GB

Hi Mouse24

Thanks

When I initially plugged the device in. It was in RAW format and unallocated space was set at around 900 GB.

After Initializing the Device the unallocated space became 37.25GB.

I could only use 37.25 GB out of the 1TB. There were no other partitions and none hidden.

 

[angeloklok01]

angeloklok, I think you are confused. "Unallocated" means that the storage space cannot be used, so you want to minimize the amount of unallocated space.

(Simplification follows)
Let's say you start off with a brand new 1 TB drive. The whole drive is unallocated. You want to divide it in half, so you partition it into two equal parts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disk_partitioning

All of the storage space is still unallocated. So you designate the first half of the drive as the primary partition and format it. Now half of the space is allocated (and, after formatting, useable) to the primary partition. The second half is still unallocated and therefore unusable.

What to do with the 37 GB? You can either turn it into a small partition or you can back up any data on it and start over by partitioning the drive how you want. You can treat it as one single large drive or you can partition it into several smaller logical drives.

Hi JSC

Thanks

It initially gave me around 900+GB as unallocated space but it was in RAW format.
after initializing it and formatting it: what I have is just the 37.25 GB as unallocated.

 

[nikorr]

1,000GB * 1,000,000,000 / 1,073,741,824 = 931GB = This is what u get.

Why don't u reformat.

 

[mouse24]

before you do that, go into diskmanagement and see if you can change the size of the drive from there... hit expand or whatever it is

 

[RetiredChief]

You might try.
Boot the winXP installation disk, select "Custum" install.
Should bring up a page showing all partitions on the drive.
(1) if The "lost" area is showing up as unallocated,
.... You can try to select it and allocating the space using all of it as a single partition.
.... Exit the install and reboot to Win XP. if this does not work, or the drive did not show the Lost space, Then
(2) under the custom install, remove ALL partitions.
... Hopefully this will then show the full size of the drive as unallocated.
... Select this, but set the size to what you want for the "C" drive.
... Select the remainder of the drive and select the remaining space as a partition.
... You should then see the two partitions.
... Select the smaller one you set up for "C" drive and install windows XP.
... After installation you should seet both partitions in windows XP. May need to format the "D" drive.