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1TB drive only showing 32 MB

verbelverbel Registered User regular
edited June 2010 in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
So I removed one of my old hard drives from my machine and now my 1TB is only allowing me access to 32mb of the drive. I have done allot of searching to find help with this to no avail. When I go to computer management the drive is showing as 1tb and the bios is showing it as 1tb. All the info on the web that I can find is for drives that are not showing up as the right size anywhere.

I did try running a hdd capacity restore tool to and tried several tools on the ultimate boot disc but none seem to fix my issue. I ran a disk restore app I had and all my data is still on the disk but I only had a trial so I could not copy any of it off. I did try sticking it in another machine that is running xp and it still only shows 32 mb. I have nothing critical on the drive but its my media drive so reloading it will be a pain. I am running windows 7 64 bit at the moment. Any help would be appreciated.

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Posts

  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Hum. Intriguing. What does Windows properties say about it?

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  • verbelverbel Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    when I right click on the drive it shows that it is 32 mb

    verbel on
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  • AlectharAlecthar Alan Shore We're not territorial about that sort of thing, are we?Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    So you double-click on the drive icon in My Computer and it does what? Shows nothing in the drive?

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  • verbelverbel Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    it opens the 32 MB with nothing in it.

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  • EchoEcho ski-bap ba-dapModerator mod
    edited April 2010
    What does the Disk Manager (Start menu -> control panel -> admin tools -> "computer management" or whatever it's called in English) -> Disk Manager) say?

    edit: or wherever you find the disk manager in Win7, I'm stuck with XP right now.

    edit edit: oh wait, you said you checked the computer manager. hmm. Is it actually formatted as 1 terabyte?

    Echo on
  • verbelverbel Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    It shows that it is in disc manager. I would just format it again, but I want my data back if I can.

    verbel on
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  • NoquarNoquar Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Did you have a linux installation on this drive at any point?

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  • verbelverbel Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Nope I never have. I did have to run a startup repair from the windows 7 disc a while back i don't know how that would matter though.

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  • shadydentistshadydentist Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    verbel wrote: »
    Nope I never have. I did have to run a startup repair from the windows 7 disc a while back i don't know how that would matter though.

    Download and burn a Ubuntu LiveCD. Boot off of it and see if you can save any of your files. When my hard disk magically disappeared from Windows, Ubuntu was still able to recognize them.

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  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited April 2010
    verbel wrote: »
    I ran a disk restore app I had and all my data is still on the disk but I only had a trial so I could not copy any of it off.

    Screenshot please.

    I'm betting it's either "the partition is there, but no drive letter" or "the partition table is fucked and you need to work verrry carefully to reconstruct it without accidentally eating it".

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  • DjeetDjeet Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    You sure it's 32MB and not 32GB? If it's 32GB then check the drive jumpers. It can be jumperred to "32GB clip" which makes the drive appear to the bios as being only 32GB in size.

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  • finalflight89finalflight89 Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    It's possible that the partition was hosed, in which case, a partition recovery program may be able to fix it. I've had luck with this software before, but it's not free.

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  • verbelverbel Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    ronya wrote: »
    verbel wrote: »
    I ran a disk restore app I had and all my data is still on the disk but I only had a trial so I could not copy any of it off.

    Screenshot please.

    I'm betting it's either "the partition is there, but no drive letter" or "the partition table is fucked and you need to work verrry carefully to reconstruct it without accidentally eating it".

    I'm thinking its the partition table thats messed up. Sorry I can't show a screenshot as I uninstalled the program. I was able to open and play the video files though.

    Djeet wrote: »
    You sure it's 32MB and not 32GB? If it's 32GB then check the drive jumpers. It can be jumperred to "32GB clip" which makes the drive appear to the bios as being only 32GB in size.

    I'm sure it 32mb, the bios still shows it as 1 tb.

    verbel on
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  • verbelverbel Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    finalflight89 wrote: »
    It's possible that the partition was hosed, in which case, a partition recovery program may be able to fix it. I've had luck with this software before, but it's not free.

    That program found the partition and says its very bad.....Does anyone know of any free apps to recover this?

    verbel on
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  • SalviusSalvius Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    TestDisk?

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  • ronyaronya Arrrrrf. the ivory tower's basementRegistered User regular
    edited April 2010
    +1 for TestDisk, assuming you're right on the partition table thing.

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  • theSquidtheSquid Sydney, AustraliaRegistered User regular
    edited April 2010
    Seconding burning an Ubuntu LiveCD and using the Partition Manager on it. Chances are for whatever reason its unformatted. Windows partition editors are pretty wanky on the whole.

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  • DeicistDeicist Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    tried this?

    linky
    I experienced this problem today. I was working on a customer's computer, I backed up all his data from his 320GB to his 1TB drive. I then unplugged his 1TB drive as to not loose his data while I formatted and installed Windows on the smaller drive. After installing Windows and plugging the 1TB drive back in I was terrified to find the 1TB drive was now only 33MB and all his data was gone. After trying a couple of circuit boards from other 1TB drives including my own 1TB and not having any luck, I decided to Google the problem and came upon this page. It took me a couple of reads through ernstatat's post to work out the solution but if you too are having trouble deciphering his jargon here is a simple translation; Gigabyte screwed up in some of their BIOS which in turn will screw up some 1TB drives. Plug your drive into a non Gigabyte mobo and run the Seatools application, which you can download from Seagate, run Advanced Features / Set Capacity to MAX native and all your data will be back on the drive. Update the Gigabyte BIOS before plugging the drive back into it and everything will be sweet. Thanx ernstatat for your help, I can now sleep tonight and not worry about getting the snot beat out of me for loosing that guys data.
    I had the same problem with two ST31000340AS drives today. After installing Windows 7 they both appeared as 32MB drives without any partitions and such. What I did to solve the problem was similar to the above:


    1. Download and burn Ultimate Boot CD to an empty CD .
    2. Boot the computer from the Ultimate Boot CD with the drives connected to the (gigabyte) motherboard.
    3. Go to Hard Disk Tools -> Hard Disk Diagnostic Tools -> Start "SeaTools for DOS"
    4. Find your way to the drives detected as ~32MB with the D key and press C to set capacity, and then reset the capacity (R key i think).
    5. Reboot the computer and your drives should appear both in BIOS and Windows as their full capacity with the old partitions and all data intact.

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  • verbelverbel Registered User regular
    edited April 2010
    I did try that. Thats what I used to get the bios to see that is 1TB. Now I just need to get my data back. I tried testdisk but it did not fix the issue. I will tru the other method suggested I guess the only problem is I don't have a lage enough drive to copy everything over to.

    verbel on
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  • yitzhak007yitzhak007 Registered User new member
    edited June 2010
    I had this problem when my WD 1 TB MyBook went south. I ripped the drive out and plugged it into a sata port. Only 32 mb showed. I pulled a jumper off an old mobo and put it on pins (1,2) and rebooted. Vwala, problem solved. Of course I had to reformat. If your worried about your data, use Handy Recovery. It even gives you a preview of what you're restoring.

    yitzhak007 on
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