Lost 19.5 of a 20GB hard drive ... HELP !!!

[Hookem]

I was given a Compaq Presario 7404 with a new Samsung SV2044D 20GB hard drive that was partitioned C: through L: with Win 98SE on C: @ 503mb ... I formatted C: and reinstalled Win 98 ... Went all through fdisk and it would not allow me to resize the C: beyond the 503mb's ... I have no idea how or what program was used to partition the hard drive ... any ideas how I might find the other 19.5GB ??? Thanks !!!!

 

[PsycoPhreak]

You could try "Partition Magic" from Powerquest, great program for adding, fixing, resizing, etc etc etc partitions......

 

[Yodums]

I was given a Compaq Presario 7404 with a new Samsung SV2044D 20GB hard drive that was partitioned C: through L: with Win 98SE on C: @ 503mb ... I formatted C: and reinstalled Win 98 ... Went all through fdisk and it would not allow me to resize the C: beyond the 503mb's ... I have no idea how or what program was used to partition the hard drive ... any ideas how I might find the other 19.5GB ??? Thanks !!!!

You can't really like, resize it using the Windows fdisk partition manager. I would really recommend you deleting both, from there youc an create partitions applying the size you would want them to be.

 

[Diggrr]

Did you try the "delete non-DOS partitions" in fdisk?
You would have to go through them one at a time, then delete the extended partion, before trying to resize the C:\ partition.

 

[Breadfan]

Yeah, delete all the partitions and start from scratch...make sure you have a decently recent copy of fdisk...some had the 2gb partition limit...but if your using your win98 install floppy, then you should be ok.

Mike

 

[Maddman]

does fdisk see the other patitions or not. Check to see if fdisk sees then as non dos partitions. Does the bios see the whole drive. If all else fails partition magic might help you out.

 

[Sonny]

FDISK would be worth your time to checkout. No partitions to delete? They got the fix for that

 

[Hookem]

In fdisk I did delete it seems like four non-dos partitions (ten total before I messed with it) .... fdisk does not see anything but C: that I can find, not Extended, Primary, Dos Non-Dos ... and when I try to get into the Bios by hitting delete I get a keyboard error ??? I read a thread earlier about going into Control Panel / Admin Options / Computer Man / Disk Managment but it must be for Windows 2000 ... Guess I will borrow a friends Win 2000 only to try and get the 19GB back so I can replace a 6GB in another old Compaq .... Thanks for the reply's !!!

 

[Maddman]

If your friend will let you put your HD on his machine and see if you can do anything with it.

 

[tft]

hmmmm. If you're familiar, with linux, you could use a bootdisk from one of various distribuitions, and it'll come up and prompt you to do what you want to your partitions. Just get rid of them all, then save the changes.
Oh, and then use a windows boot disk to start the comp. You'll have to type fdisk/mbr to get the master boot record back on so you can delete the linux partition.
Although that might not be the simplest way.
???

 

[Sonny]

In fdisk I did delete it seems like four non-dos partitions (ten total before I messed with it) .... fdisk does not see anything but C: that I can find, not Extended, Primary, Dos Non-Dos ... and when I try to get into the Bios by hitting delete I get a keyboard error ??? I read a thread earlier about going into Control Panel / Admin Options / Computer Man / Disk Managment but it must be for Windows 2000 ... Guess I will borrow a friends Win 2000 only to try and get the 19GB back so I can replace a 6GB in another old Compaq .... Thanks for the reply's !!!

FDISK would be worth your time to checkout. No partitions to delete? They got the fix for that

Go to the link I originally posted. It's a site that helps out with FDisk problems like yours.

 

[Sonny]

I got your PM & this is what I was refering to;

I had a problem which I have never seen before and I been a systems administrator for about 5 years. I had this 4.2GB Fujitsu drive that I was trying to clear off. It had a primary partition, and an extended partition with no logical disks specified. I tried to delete the extended partition but I kept getting an error saying that I couldn't delete the extended partition with logical drives existing. So I try to delete the logical drives, but there aren't any. So I was stuck on it for an hour. I got desperate and decided to surf the web. I would a site that had very little info but had just what I needed. The site specified that there are undocumented switches that work with FDISK. I already knew that there was an /MBR switch to repair the master boot record, because I has to use it many times. I found much more! I was able to force fdisk to create a logical partition from the command line, Then I was able to delete the logical, extended, then finally the primary partition. I though that you may find these useful and could possibly post them on your site for people like me that happened to surf in to find hard to find info. Here they are:

Undocumented or little known FDISK parameters:

FDISK 1/PRI:100 - Command line to create a 100 meg DOS partition on hard
drive 1.

FDISK 1/EXT:500 - Command line to create a 500 meg extended DOS partition
on hard drive 1.

FDISK 1/LOG:250 - Command line to create a 250 logical drives.

FDISK /MBR - Repair the master boot record.

FDISK /X - Ignores extended disk-access support. Use this switch if you receive disk access or stack overflow messages.

That should help show the partitions that seem to have disappeared.

Before you do anything else check to see if the jumpers are set properly on the HDD.

 

[trdsw20]

hmm I think your BIOS might be causing the problem.. When you start your comp what does it say about that one HDD. If it says its only 500 Mb then go to the BIOS and see.
If...
When you boot up and the delete key doesnt work I think also the F2 key should work. If and when you get into the BIOS run the autodetect and see if it sees the drive.

 

[TheCrow]

For what i know about Compaq computers, the key to enter in the Bios is F10.