500 GB HDD says it's only 139 GB HELP!

[Josh15]

Hi I have an Hp Pavilion a4302f and the hard disk drive is supposed to be 500 Gbs and the OS says "90.4 GB free of 139 GB. This pc has been given to me by my aunt and she formatted it I think. I will upgrade this computer for gaming but before that i need to get this problem fixed! Please help! P.S I really don't want to have to re-format it because i already have games on it that took a really took a long time to download

 

[Proximon]

You can either re-format and delete the partition, or you can leave the partition in place and make a secondary partition. With the first option, you would need a disk to re-install Win 7, of course.

 

[Proximon]

I take it all back you can just try this to start

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/

 

[Technoob420]

that is a link going in my favs incase i ever have this kind of issue lol thanks prox

 

[fzabkar]

@Josh15, do you really mean 137GB (= 128GiB) rather than 139GB? If so, then you may have a 28-bit LBA issue.

 

[Josh15]

I take it all back you can just try this to start

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/resize-a-partition-for-free-in-windows-vista/

Alright I'm reading it right now. Thanks for the help
I'll update you in a couple of minutes!

 

[Josh15]

GUYS! I just found the other 300+ GB in the disk management. It says "Unallocated" Can i extend partition "C" to take all that up? I tried right clicking both and i cant extend them.

 

[Josh15]

@Josh15, do you really mean 137GB (= 128GiB) rather than 139GB? If so, then you may have a 28-bit LBA issue.

Sorry but, I did not understand a word of what you said. Lol I'm new to this. Where did you get the 137 Gb part from? Lol

 

[fzabkar]

@Josh15, I see you have already resolved your problem, but just FYI ...

Windows XP was limited to 137GB HDD capacities. That's the maximum size that can be accommodated by 28-bits. To see capacities greater than that, your OS needs to support 48-bit LBAs. This support was added in a subsequent Microsoft Service Pack.

How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013

 

[Josh15]

@Josh15, I see you have already resolved your problem, but just FYI ...

Windows XP was limited to 137GB HDD capacities. That's the maximum size that can be accommodated by 28-bits. To see capacities greater than that, your OS needs to support 48-bit LBAs. This support was added in a subsequent Microsoft Service Pack.

How to enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing support for ATAPI disk drives in Windows XP:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/303013

I didn't solve it yet I have 3 partitions of the Hard Drive and one that is "unallocated" how can I fix this?
Thanks for explaining that to me. I do believe it is 139 Gbs.

 

[fzabkar]

Which OS are you using?

Could we see the partition table and boot sector with Microsoft's Sector Inspector?
http://www.users.on.net/~fzabkar/SecInspect.zip

If you extract the above archive to the one folder and execute the SIrun.bat file, then this will generate a report file named SIout.txt.

 

[Josh15]

Im using Windows 7.
Here's the report
I tried running it as admin

--------------
Date and time:
Wed 08/29/2012
06:35 PM

0001.033

Sector Inspector Copyright Microsoft Corporation 2003


Error 5 was encountered while opening \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0.

Access is denied.



Error 5 was encountered while opening \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1.

Access is denied.



Error 5 was encountered while opening \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE2.

Access is denied.



Error 5 was encountered while opening \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE3.

Access is denied.



Error 5 was encountered while opening \\.\PHYSICALDRIVE4.

Access is denied.

 

[Proximon]

You need to be logged in as administrator to do that. That is probably the problem with clicking on the drive as well.

 

[Josh15]

I am the admin. Heres a screenshot of the disk manager: http://postimage.org/image/o5yipqctd/

 

[fzabkar]

You can't expand C: because drive D: is in the way.

ISTM that your Disk 0 is a clone of a 160MB HDD, and that the remaining space was left unallocated.

I don't know how to make HP's recovery disc see the whole drive other than to wipe your data and start again. Otherwise you could delete the partition containing your Factory Image, but I don't know what problems, if any, this will cause.

 

[Proximon]

So, do you have an actual win 7 disk? I think you have to remove the recovery partition before you can expand that, now.

 

[Proximon]

Y
ISTM that your Disk 0 is a clone of a 160MB HDD, and that the remaining space was left unallocated.

That makes a lot of sense. Maybe the original drive was that small? Hmmm no, comp shipped with 500GB.

Josh15, I have successfully used generic OEM Win 7 disk to replace the Win 7 on a laptop disk... this was allowed by MS, but I had to jump through a few hoops to do it. You might check with HP about system recovery media.

 

[Josh15]

You can't expand C: because drive D: is in the way.

ISTM that your Disk 0 is a clone of a 160MB HDD, and that the remaining space was left unallocated.

I don't know how to make HP's recovery disc see the whole drive other than to wipe your data and start again. Otherwise you could delete the partition containing your Factory Image, but I don't know what problems, if any, this will cause.

Can I copy Factory Image then delete it then make a partition containing it? "Factory Image" contains boot files and hp files. Should I delete it?
http://postimage.org/image/8aocctnvh/

 

[Proximon]

Can I copy Factory Image then delete it then make a partition containing it? "Factory Image" contains boot files and hp files. Should I delete it?
http://postimage.org/image/8aocctnvh/

I don't know about that... see, there is a restore utility that points to that partition. It lives in that first small partition on the drive. The method it uses to point to that partition would determine if it can be moved.

 

[fzabkar]

I suspect that HP's Factory Image might be a [compressed?] sector-by-sector cloned copy of a 160MB HDD, with a cloned partition table that reflects the size of the original drive.

Edit: It seems I was wrong. Sorry, our posts crossed.

 

[Proximon]

Yes but maybe she took it into a tech that had a 160GB image and screwed it up

 

[Josh15]

I don't have a Win 7 disk
I have no problem formatting my system.
Should I do a factory system restore?
The comp did come originally with Win 7 so when I restore I'd still have Win 7 right? All I have to do is update it? Perhaps I can do a backup on a disk?

 

[Proximon]

The computer should have a way to make recovery disks.

 

[Josh15]

The computer should have a way to make recovery disks.

Yea I have blank CD-R disks

 

[fzabkar]

Do these documents help?

Creating Recovery Discs or Saving a Recovery Image to a USB Flash Drive (Windows 7):
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01867124

Performing an HP System Recovery (Windows 7):
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01867418