[Pirate07]

Ok I took an old 80GB EIDE hard drive out of a Dell computer, even though it was old, it didn't have a lot of "miles" on it and was well taken care of. I put it in my brothers computer and everything was fine and dandy for weeks until yesterday. I booted up Linux and Windows XP from CD and both OS's were showing that the 80GB Hard drive only have 32GB of space available. The other 48GB was no where to be found. So my 80GB hard drive is now a 32GB hard drive. I know hardware fails all the time, but what could be some possibilities why this happened? I am also looking for a good program that can scan and attempt to repair bad sectors. I have used SpinRite before but it takes a very very long time. I know there are many others out there, which one would you recommend?

[madmatt2006]

Wonder if there is something up with a jumper some drives of that age had a jumper to limit the size of the drive to 32GB. Is it seeing the full size in BIOS? I use spinrite

[Pirate07]

madmatt2006, on 28 October 2009 - 10:43 PM, said:

Wonder if there is something up with a jumper some drives of that age had a jumper to limit the size of the drive to 32GB. Is it seeing the full size in BIOS? I use spinrite

It's funny that you mention the jumper. I already tried moving it around but, it was setup as a slave and everything was working great. FYI: The hard drive setup in the computer is (or was) 1 160GB Sata (which is setup as the Master) and the 80GB EIDE (setup as Slave). And yes it is seeing the full size in the BIOS. That's what is throwing me off. I will try spinrite on it tomorrow, and see what I come up with.

[madmatt2006]

I'd run spinrite on it. Is disk manager only seeing 32GB as the full drive no unpartitioned space left?

[Pirate07]

disk manager is only seeing 32GB no unallocated space

[madmatt2006]

sounds like drive may have a fault with it's mainboard in the 32GB limitation area. Let us know how you go with recovery

[noop]

I don't think this is a hard drive failure. If it was working fine in the old pc, then you hook it up to the new pc and it caps it perfectly at 32GB, that sounds like a hardware/software conflict. Sometimes the motherboard has a jumper that can limit drives to this size have you checked for that? And you are 100% sure the bios shows it is detecting the drive at 80GB? Are you able to select the drive in the bios and have it recheck the size/set the size manually? Also, what type of cable are you using? Make sure it isn't a cable select cable either

[madmatt2006]

Have you tried this drive in another PC I'd do this first keep it on it's own IDE port don't slave it and see what you can see

[Pirate07]

I have not put the HDD back in the orginal pc yet. I am going to do these things, this weekend. I will post back after I try the old PC and SpinRite.

[Pirate07]

Well I tried SpinRite on the Hard Drive today and it came back all messed up. So I am not going to worry about putting it back in the old pc. Think I might hit it with a hammer several times before I throw it away!

[noop]

Well if you are going to down that route, I would recommend microwaving it and then drill holes in the platters lol

[madmatt2006]

thermite seems to be the best looking method look at my post here http://www.pchelphq....t__0