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Solved: 500GB Hard Drive Formats to 43GB

Discussion in 'Hardware' started by MajorOak, Sep 22, 2008.

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  1. MajorOak

    MajorOak Thread Starter

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    Nov 28, 2007
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    I have a Maxtor 500gb External hard drive (2 weeks old). Tried quick reformat after an error and it only formats to 43gb (NTFS ). Ran chkdsk and that reports 500gb (approx) with no bad sectors, etc. Am I missing something simple or is the drive useles. (I can copy stuff onto the 43gb space).
     
    MajorOak, Sep 22, 2008
    #1
  2. crjdriver

    crjdriver Moderator

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    With externals, I always recommend deleting ALL partitions on the drive and create one using disk management.

    If DM shows the full size of the drive, you should then be able to delete/create partition and format with ntfs.
     
    crjdriver, Sep 22, 2008
    #2
  3. bigbear

    bigbear

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    Go to diskmanagement and see if you have a partition, it may just need formatting before you can use it.
    Go to start>run type diskmgmt.msc and hit enter
     
    bigbear, Sep 22, 2008
    #3
  4. MajorOak

    MajorOak Thread Starter

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    Thx to both of you for your response. It was a partition problem (380gb) which didn't show initially. Changed USB lead with another drive and it then appeared!!!! Formatted and everything working OK now. Thx for the advice
     
    MajorOak, Sep 22, 2008
    #4
  5. crjdriver

    crjdriver Moderator

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    Good work
     
    crjdriver, Sep 22, 2008
    #5

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