The first thing to determine is that the machines
bios correctly recognizes all the available hard disk space. (250 GB in your case.) This should be displayed in the machines POST (Power On Self Test). If the POST is too fast to read;
Open Disk Manager (Start, Run, (type in or copy/paste
diskmgmt.msc) or,
C:\WINDOWS\system32\diskmgmt.msc). Is the full capacity shown? (Lower pane, on the left, under Disk 0.) Realize that on a 250 GB disk, only (approx.) 90% of the disk will be displayed - ~225 GB.) Note your partition layout.
In Robster057's case (
Lost Space on Hard drive after formatting Post #13), he had a FAT32 partition on Disk 0 which didn't have a drive letter. This was his "Restore/Recovery" partition for his O/S (Operating System). It was the second disk (Disk 1) where his space was "lost". He could have simply created a new FAT32 or NTFS partition in the unallocated space (61.92 GB), then formatted the "new" partiton, and had his full capacity across two partitions (Drives) on one hard disk. As he wanted one partition (Drive) with the full capacity, he deleted the first partition, leaving the entire hard disk marked as Unallocated. He then created a new partition using the entire unallocated space.
If you want your entire hard disk to be one drive/partition,
and you don't possess a third party disk management tool to MERGE
adjoining partitions, you will have to delete all partitions on the hard disk and start from scratch. Since this is a "new" install, and if the above is true, then now is the time to perform this action. Before you start loading software/programs etc.
Partition/Format
How to partition and format a hard disk by using Windows XP Setup program
Available Disk Space:
Windows XP Does Not Recognize All Available Disk Space
If by chance you can't accomplish your desired result through the above means;
First, boot to the Windows XP recovery console.
How to install and use the Recovery Console in Windows XP
Note: To start the computer from the Windows XP CD-ROM, you must configure the basic input/output system (
bios) of the computer to start from your CD-ROM drive.
To run the Recovery Console from the Windows XP startup disks or the Windows XP CD-ROM, follow these steps:
Insert the Windows XP CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive, and then restart the computer.
Hit ENTER to select any options that are required to start the computer from the CD-ROM drive if you are prompted. (ie; Boot from CDROM)
When the "Welcome to Setup" screen appears, press R to start the Recovery Console.
If you have a dual-boot or multiple-boot computer, select the installation that you must access from the Recovery Console.
When you are prompted, type the Administrator password. If the administrator password is blank, just press ENTER.
At the command prompt, type the appropriate commands to diagnose and repair your Windows XP installation.
For a list of commands that are available in Recovery Console, type recovery console commands or help at the command prompt, and then press ENTER. For information about a specific command, type help commandname at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
To exit the Recovery Console and restart the computer, type exit at the command prompt, and then press ENTER.
Note that the following command (mkdiskraw) is not listed in the available commands. It is a "hidden" command as it is extremely powerful.
Just to verify all recognized hard disks and partitions, inside the recovery console, type the command:
Map
Hit ENTER. This displays the available drives on the machine.
The primary drive is Disk 0, then successive drives are Disk 1, Disk 2, etc. ("diskpart" can also be utilised to see what drives are on the system.)
Ensuring you have the
correct drive, type:
mkdiskraw #
(# is the number of the drive you want to clear)
Hit ENTER.
This command will kill your data, filesystem, partition table, and MBR.
EVERYTHING.
With your XP CD in the drive, restart/reboot the machine and install XP.
I recommend that you obtain and save on a CD the critical drivers from Dell before you undertake clearing the machine. (Chipset, LAN, Modem, etc)
To obtain a detailed listing of your machines hardware, download, install, and run
Everest Home Edition on this machine. (Clean FreeWare) Once it's finished loading and running, click on the
Report Wizard in the Menu Bar. Save all hardware related pages (the default) to a
TEXT file in a location of your choice. (It will default the location to
C:\Program Files\Lavalys\EVEREST Home Edition\Reports, unless you redirect it.) Print or backup the file so you have a copy somewhere.
1525 XP Drivers
Drivers & Downloads
(Ensure you choose XP in the drop down box for the O/S.)
Post back with your results and any further questions.
