40Gb Hard Drive Reduced To 32Gb

bazeze,

That's great! Amazing how a change in the facts influence the outcome and the decisions.

 

I have only a couple of things to say.

1-I DO not agree with a HD and all in one chunk. Unless I have a 2nd HD ( or maybe even a CDROM ) for storage, downloads and backups. I lost EVERYTHING ONCE. That was enough. And that was back in the DOS/Win3.1 days.

Very seldom ( if ever ) do we have problems with other than the C: drive.

2-I DO NOT agree with letting the OS make decisions for me.

BillyBob

 

I'm with BillyBob on using fdisk and making at least 2 partitions on a disk that size (40G); mine would be 10 for the system and 30 for data. And I'd install most all programs on D: to keep the OS disk SMALL for Ghosting. Then image files don't get so big they won't fit on my DVDs.

I might make 3 partitions 10, 10, and 20 so I have one ntfs partition (10) for very large files (>4GB). Otherwise I feel there's no reason to use ntfs on a private computer, especially since MS makes it difficult to impossible to recover data when the OS crashes (you can't just use DOS for recovery like you can in FAT32. I've been through that, and it's a really big deal, especially when the user password protects files from her kids and then forgot the password.

 

I have nodded my head at all that has been said (although I don't know much about XP and the 32gb/ntfs limit, I haven't had a lot of XP experience). Trying to partition a drive out of the extra freespace would certainly be risky.
If the current partition is lost, all the data could well be lost. Then again, XP partitioned itself onto the freespace of my HDD (as a dual boot) without problems.

I do not hold exceptional faith in "partition rearrangers ", although I have not found too many problems with the partition changes themselves, but mainly with other things they should do (like identify the correct size of the HDD for a start). I find PM will shuffle partitions around OK.

Once you start doing changes, your current data is "on the line ". If you have a backed up system, you are "care-free" and can do whatever you like (ha-ha!, if only it was so simple )

Me, if the extra 8gb could be safely partitioned, I would use it as "My Documents" / data storage.

Matt

 

If the BIOS only saw the HD as a 32gig and it was formated as a 32gig and it has now been fixed up and the BIOS now sees it as the 40gig it MAY NOT be formated correctly.

Now that i see that it was indeed a jumper problem I lean even more toward a resetup.

Windows itself ( if installed on only 32gig) MAY NOT see it correctly.

I think the SAFEST thing to do is to boot to the floppy and REFORMAT the whole drive as the 40gig that it is. Partition it or not that is a USER choice.

Window can be a REAL BIG pain you know where about this kind of stuff.

I believe this is what is know as " THINKING AHEAD " And doing things NOW that may illiminate problems later. A few extra minutes now could well save HOURS later.

And with me it is a " Been there done that. "

I think bazeze now has enough info and ideas to make his own decision as to waht to do.

BillyBob

 

mattman and sparrow

I like the various points you bring out .

BB

 

Hope to clarify something.

The BIOS on your mobo is augmented by 'firmware' (really suplements to the BIOS) on the hard disks, CDROMs, and various cards (AGP, PCI) - you've all seen the little printed circuits on those things. So when the BIOS reports on the various peices of hardware in your computer, the term BIOS includes the sum of its parts. The info is stored by the flashable memory on the mobo but comes from all those sources, some of which can also be flashed with upgrades.

This is only one function of the BIOS.

 

Thanks Guys
I learn alot from all of you
Experiance a Problem was a good thing
learn what i did not know
i would like to thank you all.
hahahaaaahhaaaaaaaaa i got all my 40Gb back

 

bazeze

"I learn alot from all of you "
That's the beauty of a discussion.