[TF1216]

I decided to come here looking for answers because there are master's of all trades on this forum.

My problem is that I can only use half of my second hard drive (250 GB) for storing music.  I sent my diy computer to a friend to uninstall x64 and put normal XP on it months ago.  Because of my 64-bit processor we have always had problems toying with the computer.  I am not quite sure what happened but in the process he managed to block me from using part of my hard drive.  I stored things on this part and through my attempts to locate them it seems they are still there just unobtainable. 

Does anyone have any suggestions?  I am not extremely savvy with computers so I apologize for that. Please help!

[WGH]

Click on the Start button, then
Programs
Administrative Tools
Computer Management
Expand Storage
Click on Disk Management

What do you see? Some thing like this? You may now have 2 partitions on your C drive and and need to make the second one active.

[Imperial]

http://www.partition-recovery.com/

Imperial

[TF1216]

WGH,

I did as you suggested.  The hard drive that windows was installed on was partitioned into (C:) and (F:).  The entire hard drive is a 250 GB on.  I remember making F: much larger than C: when I partitioned.  The C: drive has 32 GB of capacity which sounds right to me.  The F: drive only has 39GB of capacity with 34GB free. 

I did a search for the files I remember saving on that drive and none come up.  I believe my friend accidentally installed Windows twice, once on the C: drive and once on the F: drive.  I don't think Windows is 5 GB in size.  So I am thinking the 5GB of used space are the files I saved.

I am going to try Imperial's link right now.

[satfrat]

Click on the Start button, then
Programs
Administrative Tools
Computer Management
Expand Storage
Click on Disk Management

What do you see? Some thing like this? You may now have 2 partitions on your C drive and and need to make the second one active.

You seem pretty knowledgable so let me ask you this. My secondary HD that I use for both system backup and my audio only library is 700G with 197G left. I see thru Properties that I can compress the hard drive to save space. Would doing this compromise the quanity of my VBR recordings and is it a wrothwhile thing to do? I backup my library on an exterior hard drive now but at the rate I'm downloading music, the time is aproaching when I'll need more than just 1 exterior drive or just 1 750G secondary interior drive. But it beats storing 3000+ CD's. Thanks. 

Cheers,
Robin

[TF1216]

Hey Robin,

How is the weather in VT?

Imperial,

I "superscanned" the drive and a lot of things popped-up.  Do you have any suggestions for me?

[JEaton]

My secondary HD that I use for both system backup and my audio only library is 700G with 197G left. I see thru Properties that I can compress the hard drive to save space. Would doing this compromise the quanity of my VBR recordings and is it a wrothwhile thing to do? I backup my library on an exterior hard drive now but at the rate I'm downloading music, the time is aproaching when I'll need more than just 1 exterior drive or just 1 750G secondary interior drive. But it beats storing 3000+ CD's.

Files won't be compromised in any way when stored on a compressed volume - the compression is lossless, as it would have to be for storing data and most other files.  You can't throw away part of a spreadsheet or database. 

But if I understand you correctly, the drive is used to store music files.  If the files are already compressed in any CODEC, whether MP3 or WMA or Flac or similar, then you won't be able to compress them much futher and would gain nothing by converting it to a compressed volume.  In fact, the required storage space may actually increase a little.

[WGH]

Robin - I have never used any Windows file compression, so I don't know what it would do. I am old fashioned, even though I have a backup I still like my files to be accessible using any OS. Hard drives crash and operating systems get corrupted, so I like the ability to copy data off a hard drive in an emergency.  An uncompressed hd gives me instant access to my files using Windows or Linux. Personally, I would get another hard drive before using compression, newegg has a 750 GB Western Digital drive for $150, though I haven't kept track of hd prices lately to know if that is a great deal.

Wayne

[satfrat]

Robin - I have never used any Windows file compression, so I don't know what it would do. I am old fashioned, even though I have a backup I still like my files to be accessible using any OS. Hard drives crash and operating systems get corrupted, so I like the ability to copy data off a hard drive in an emergency.  An uncompressed hd gives me instant access to my files using Windows or Linux. Personally, I would get another hard drive before using compression, newegg has a 750 GB Western Digital drive for $150, though I haven't kept track of hd prices lately to know if that is a great deal.

Wayne

Hi Wayne, I had already stated that i use a backup exterior hard drive to secure my library investment. I really have no intention of compressing my hard drive unless i had heard some real convincing facts. I was more curious than anything. 

Cheers,
Robin

[WGH]

I did a search for the files I remember saving on that drive and none come up.  I believe my friend accidentally installed Windows twice, once on the C: drive and once on the F: drive.  I don't think Windows is 5 GB in size.  So I am thinking the 5GB of used space are the files I saved.

If the 39 GB drive F was created, formated, and then XP was installed, then your files are toast if they were located on that part of the disk. But files can be scattered all over a disk. You should have a 179 GB inactive partition. But assigning it a drive letter and making it active may corrupt any data on it. You can also expand F to 218 GB, but that might do strange things too. Time to go slow and do a lot of research.

If the files are valuable the best thing to do is not use the hard drive at all because every time you use it you overwrite some files. Replace the hard drive with a new one, re-install XP, then you can figure out how to access the (old) hard drive without corrupting any more files.

[riffer]

I decided to come here looking for answers because there are master's of all trades on this forum....

Lol!

It appears you are running up against the 128GB limit.  To overcome this, you need two things:

First, your hardware must support it.  I assume it does, because you imply you had access before you sent the computer to be reformatted.

Second, you must have Windows XP Sp 1 or later installed.

After that, I am not sure.

[TONEPUB]

Will partition recovery work with an external drive that used to be 500gb and is now showing up as 78gb?
I'm using XP and trying to reformat, but it's only coming up 78gb..

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

[WGH]

Will partition recovery work with an external drive that used to be 500gb and is now showing up as 78gb?
I'm using XP and trying to reformat, but it's only coming up 78gb..

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Since you want to reformat, the manufacturers tools might work better than XP. All hd's (Seagate, Western Digital, etc.) have programs that will diagnose problems, partition and reformat their disks.

[Levi]

Will partition recovery work with an external drive that used to be 500gb and is now showing up as 78gb?
I'm using XP and trying to reformat, but it's only coming up 78gb..

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

I am not familiar with the tool.  If you are going to reformat the drive, just make sure you use NTFS.

Levi