sad, sad, sad

[baqalley]

I scrimped and saved and finally bought myself a new system. 800mgz
I got a 30 Gig HDD.
While the computer was being set up (I got then to setup WIN 98 SE, because I don't have a clue) I asked if they would mind partitioning the HDD for me into 3 equal parts using fdisk. Three drives of 10 gigs each.
They did so.
I got home and plugged the baby in.
Everything was beautiful.
But one very sad item appeared or I should say, didn't appear.
I had only one partition, (C) and it was less than 10 gigs.
Can anyone tell me what happened to the other 20 gigs and can I retrieve it.
Or am I now the proud owner of a 10 gig HDD.

[kennedyb]

Are you familiar with fdisk? If so you can view your partitions there. I believe it is under logical drives in the extended dos partition.

You can also go into my compter and right click on your hard drive and it should tell you its capacity.

It could be that they did not properly set it up using fdisk.

Let us know what you find out.

Good luck.

[Rat]

you can run f-disk to see if the other two partitons are in fact there (this will tell you if you indeed have a 30gig hard drive). it is possible that the other partitions were not formatted. boot with your win98 startup floppy and at the a: prompt type fdisk. when the menu comes up, select item 4 :display partiton information. if they are present in f-disk, exit f-disk and get back to the a: prompt. then type in format D: and hit enter and let it format, then when you get back to the a: prompt, type in format e: and hit enter... let it format. reboot the computer with the floppy removed and see if the partitions show up.

rat

[justy]

Option four on Fdisk, follow Rat's proceedure. This will tell you exactly what you've got.

All the best, Justy.

[baqalley]

kennedyb
I went to my computer and clicked on my "C" drive, (that's the only one there)
and it's 9.44 gig!!!
Iy yi yi

[Rat]

let's keep this in one thread.... looks like you do indeed have a 30 gig drive and the other partitons were never created. Go back into f-disk ad create the other partitons; select option 1 : create dos partiton then select option 2; create extended DOS partiton, make it the size you want (10 gig), after you do that hit esc, it will display create logical DOS drive in the extended DOS partition. you can assign the rest of the drive here. after you create those partitions, exit f-disk, reboot (with the floppy in) and format the two (D: and E: ) partitions you just made. pull the floppy out and reboot.

rat...

[This message has been edited by Rat (edited 02-19-2001).]

[TOAD6147]

Now this explains it! You've been posting in two different threads about the same problem! That's a no no! I meant that one to be there. Rat, doesn't he have to make the Extended DOS Partition the balance of the drive space less the Primary and then divide that into Logical Drives? I don't have to do it very often but I did it this way today and it worked out fine.
By the by, baqalley, if you pull a 30 gig harddrive out of the box please keep in mind that's the "nominal" size and it will cost you about 5% of the total "nominal" capacity every time you slice it into extra partitions. They probably chose the 33% option for the C: size. So, that 30 gigs will probably net out at +/- 28 gigs when it's all said and done. Case in point: my 20 gig nets out at 19.03 gigs being split between 3 partitions.

[This message has been edited by TOAD6147 (edited 02-19-2001).]

[Rat]

toad,
he already has a primary created and windoze installed, he just needs to finish the partitioning. if he just goes back to f-disk and follows the instructions i posted, it should be fine. if i'm wrong, let me know....

rat....

[baqalley]

Rat,
Your directives were correct, I'm sure, however through the process of running from room to room (computer to computer) I made some sort of mistake.
I did get another partition but was only given 2047 MB on a D drive and could not get an E drive.
The D drive says it is only Fat 16.
Where can I go from here??

[baqalley]

Very Sorry about the threads, I'm a little flustered about this HDD thing.

OK I've been playing with it trying to discover the err of my ways and have ended up with C drive=almost 10 gig as before,
D drive=2047
E=2047
F=2047
G=2047
H=1800
all in Fat 16
Still missing a lot of space.
Now I'm really lost.
What I wanted was 3 equal partitions, can this still be accomplished.
Should I go back into fdisk and delete all these drives (except C of course)then resize the D drive to 20 gigs, then cut that in half again for the E drive???
Does that make any sense??
What about Fat 16 vs. Fat 32??

[bhess]

I think that you did everything right so far but don't choose fat16 choose fat32. I think that is why the max amount is 2047mb.

[baqalley]

BRAVO!!! BRAVO!!!
DRIVE "C" 9440MB
DRIVE "D" 9640MB
DRIVE "E" 9993MB

Thank you all very much for sharing your knowledge.

This is what I did......
First I clicked on (enable support for large disks) as suggested by "bhess"
the primary partition was already done "C".
I subtracted the amount of "C" from the amount available and created an Extended Dos Partition, as suggested by "Toad6147", and "kennedyb".
From this Extended Dos Partition I created 2
logical drives, "D" and "E".
I then formatted the new drives as suggested by "RAT",
Then rebooted to find a big smile on my face and 29073MB of HDD.

And for FDisk.exe, I was always intimidated about it, now I'm doing it.
Thank all of you very much, for a lesson well learned.
baqalley

[justy]

Well done!

All the best, Justy.

[Rat]

quote: First I clicked on (enable support for large disks) as suggested by "bhess"

****....i knew i forgot to tell you something....rats...... sorry.

rat...

[G]

Dear baqalley,

Most of the instructions below you have been able to complete on your own with some help. I hope my instructions are comprehensive enough that in the event you have to perform a complete re-installation in the future they may be of use to you.

1. Place a bootable diskette in to the floppy drive immediately after power on (make sure that your bios settings, start-up options/sequence indicates that the first start-up drive is the floppy drive or a:\> )
2. You will be presented with the a:\> prompt
3. At the a:\> prompt type dir Hence, you will have a:\>dir (Press enter (return key)
4. A screen will appear with the contents of your bootable floppy disk.
5. The file which you require is called Fdisk
6. At the a:\> prompt type Fdisk Hence, you will have a:\>Fdisk (Press enter (return key)
7. A screen will appear stating at the bottom ‘Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)’. Indicate Y for yes.
8. The next screen represents Fdisk options. These range from 1-4 (but you may have fives options if you have more than one HD connected to your computer)
9. To establish the state of your hard drive, go to option 4 (Display partition information)
10. This screen will either show that you have a partitioned hard drive or that no partition(s) were detected. If a partition is detected it will inform you which partition is the active partition.
11. If no partition(s) were detected, and bearing in mind that you will need a partitioned hard drive in order to format your hard drive; press Esc to get out of this screen and back to the Fdisk option screen. (Bear with me for now. This information is simply for completeness).
12. Press Fdisk option 1 (Create dos partition or logical disc drive)
13. The Create dos partition or logical disk dive menu screen appears
14. Press create dos partition or logical disk drive option 1 (Create primary dos partition). It is necessary to have a primary partition otherwise you will not be able to install Windows. You can stipulate the size you would like your primary partition to be. Any other partitions you wish to have will be up to you (extended or logical drive – but remember to stipulate yes for ‘Do you wish to enable large disk support (Y/N)’ each time you go back in to Fdisk.
15. Press Esc and go back to the Fdisk options screen
16. Press Fdisk options 2 (Set active partition). You will need to do this if you wish to install Windows. Follow the instructions. It is self-explanatory. (Create an active partition or change it.).
17. Press Esc until you arrive back at Fdisk options.
18. Press Fdisk options 4 (Display partition information)
19. You should find that you now have one primary partition, which is ‘active’. (This procedure will help you to manipulate the active partition of a single HD).
20. Press Esc until you arrive at the a:\> prompt
21. Warm boot (reboot) your computer and place a bootable diskette in to the floppy drive immediately after power on.
22. At the a:\> type format c:/s (This MS-Dos switch may not happen because c:> will not have any system files on it and for the simple fact that no Ram will make it impossible to use this switch). The difficulty here is that if you are using an EBD (Emergency Boot Disc) you will need to insert your EBD, restart your computer, and change directories to the drive letter of your CD-ROM drive (usually one drive letter ahead of where it typically resides because of the RAM drive created by EBD). If EBD still does not boot your CD-ROM then the drivers on your EBD do not include your CD-ROM device driver or a generic device driver to do the job instead. You will need to edit your Config.sys file adding the necessary line for your CD-ROM device driver and maybe even installing the CD-ROM device driver on to the EBD.
23. Hence, you have something like d:\>format(space)c:/s (Note also if you receive a ‘Bad command’ or ‘Bad file name’ error message, you will need to extract the Format.com tool to boot your disc.
24. Type at the prompt , hence, a:>extract(space)ebd.cab(space)format.com
25. After Format.com is extracted to your boot disk and the MS-Dos command prompt is displayed, type format c:/s (e.g., d:>format(space)c:/s). Alternatively, type format drive: for partition(s) not marked as your active partition. Follow the instruction on the screen. I have already explained what to do in the above explanation so I will not repeat myself.
26. The /s switch will copy system files to the ‘c’ partition on your hard drive. The system files are essential if you wish to install Windows. Without the system file, the partition will not be recognised.
27. Restart (boot) your computer with your bootable diskette in place and either indicate that you wish to use CD-ROM support or go to the prompt for your CD-ROM and type setup.exe. Hence, it may look something like this: d:>setup.exe
28. Your windows CD-ROM will start spinning using both methods and Windows will start installing itself on to your c:>.

I hope this is of help.

All the best,
G


[This message has been edited by G (edited 02-21-2001).]