Where is my 21GB is gone after XP installation

[skdevnath]

Hi,

I am facing a strange problem, I have a 160 GB Seagate harddisk
(ST3160023A (160 GB)). I formatted this hard disc with NTFS using XP installation CD and installed XP. After this I update XP with SP2 and other latest updates from Microsoft website.

Recently I noticed that I have only around 120 GB left and around 24GB is used. I enabled show hidden file option from windows explorer and added up all directory and files size under C: drive, it comes to only 3GB, so now I wonder where my disc space is gone? :confused:
This is new PC and all parts are fairly new. Here is my PC configuration.

. ABIT AN8 ULTRA NF4
. AMD 64 |3800+ ATHLON X2
. GeIL Value 1GB (2 x 512MB) DDR 400 (PC 3200) Dual Channel
. PS - ENERMAX Noisetaker EG495P-485W
. Case - Thermaltake Tsunami VA3000SWA
. Video card - ABIT RX700PRO-256PCIE Radeon X700PRO 256MB
. DVD RW – Khypermedia - KDVRW8X
. OS – XP Professional with SP2
. 200GB Seagate/160GB Seagate/160GB WD
. UC-9FATR2 Card reader
. KDS 17" LCD


Please help me to find the solution of this problem, I am afraid if I have to install my XP, I want to avoid it as I already did 2 times.

[Jochenp]

Don't cross-post

[RootX]

If your installation cd doesn't include SP2 then windows recognise only 127GB.
Since you installed SP2 later, you can find the rest of the capacity as "unallocated space"; run computer management and check with disk management
http://www.thelab.gr/attachment.php?s=&postid=306143.

Create a partition and use a utility like partition magic for example, to merge the partitions.

[[XC]thewildblue]

Check your system restore settings, it might be taking up more than you realise.

[skdevnath]

hi thewildblue, the problem is solved after I did error-checking from windows explorer.
explorer -> c driver property->tools tab ->Error-checking->check now
I thing the problem was as you described however checkdisc corrected it. I ran the checkdisc after installing XP2. I got following message from the check disc
"deleting corrupted attribute record (128, $Bad)."

Now my disc manager shows that it is 149GB NTFS, and I don't see any unallocated space in the drive. Not sure why it is not exactly 160GB may be it is multiplication of 1024 issue.

I now see that, I occupy around 7GB, which I expected as meanwhile I installed few more applications.

thank you :toast:

[skdevnath]

Don't cross-post
Sorry for that...:)

[[XC]thewildblue]

Glad to hear you got it sorted.

[TxAg]

Hard drive and computer manufacturers define 1GB as 1 billion bytes and not 1024MB.

160 GB = 160,000,000,000 B = 156,250,000 KB = 152587 MB = 149 GB


hi thewildblue, the problem is solved after I did error-checking from windows explorer.
explorer -> c driver property->tools tab ->Error-checking->check now
I thing the problem was as you described however checkdisc corrected it. I ran the checkdisc after installing XP2. I got following message from the check disc
"deleting corrupted attribute record (128, $Bad)."

Now my disc manager shows that it is 149GB NTFS, and I don't see any unallocated space in the drive. Not sure why it is not exactly 160GB may be it is multiplication of 1024 issue.

I now see that, I occupy around 7GB, which I expected as meanwhile I installed few more applications.

thank you :toast:

[skdevnath]

thank you for clarifying it, TxAg.

[Yannic]

is there a way to get around this?

I always install to my 200Gig C drive and like is said, my original windows disk will only recognise it as 127GB.

This is OK, but after putting on SP2, Sure I can create a 2nd partition on the disk of about 60GB but I am not allowed to tack it back on to the windows partition.

[skdevnath]

Some one suggest to create a XP disk with SP2, I haven't tried that too. I guess that should work as SP2 has the fix for disk of size more than 127GB.

What I did is, I installed the XP with normal XP CD and then I upgraded to SP2. After this I realize that I used around 21 GB out of 160 GB. I went explorer and selected the option for check-disk for my c: drive. Windows asked me to reboot the machine, so I did that. Before XP boots, the Check-disk ran and it corrected the problem as I mentioned in my previous reply(see the message thrown my check-disk). I guess the check after SP2 installation has the fix for 127 GB problem and it corrected the disk.
I didn't do any extra partition; whole disk was under one single partition.

[ewitte]

Yes a copy with SP2 slipstreamed onto it will see it just fine during install.

[alving]

is there a way to get around this?

I always install to my 200Gig C drive and like is said, my original windows disk will only recognise it as 127GB.

This is OK, but after putting on SP2, Sure I can create a 2nd partition on the disk of about 60GB but I am not allowed to tack it back on to the windows partition.

With Partition Magic you can merge and change the sizes of your partitions. So give that a try! :toast:

[thinkingbear]

If your installation cd doesn't include SP2 then windows recognise only 127GB.
I use XP with only Service Pack 1, and it had no problems detecting the full size of my 300, 250, and 160 GB hard drives.

[Serra]

I concur. I know Windows 98 SE had some improved ability to recognize larger disks... but XP SP1 and 2 don't have any. I know lots of people who run 300GB drives and don't use SP2 (because SP2 sucks)... some of whom don't even use SP1 (not sure why).