120 GB HDD suddenly shows up as 37.2 GB in Windows (1 Viewer)

[Glenn Overholt]

Ok, sorry about that last, but I wasn't positive.

One more suggestion - instead of typing in 'fdisk' return, try this one out.
'fdisk /mbr' & return. It resets the Master Boot Record. If that doesn't do it, I'd take all of the important stuff off of that and do a format, and you may want to get the instructions on doing a low level format on that thing, or toss it.

Glenn

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I just tried 'fdisk /mbr' but it had no effect. When I typed 'fdisk /?', the '/mbr' switch wasn't listed as an option. The only switches listed were '/status' and '/x'.

EDIT: I just read here that the /mbr switch is undocumented, and that it's normal for it not to show up when typing 'fdisk /?'.

 

[Tekara]

So what does your bios list the hard drive as? Just go ahead and post everything relaed to the hard drive that you can find in bios.

On some thought about a cause, has the computer undergone any upgrades? Has it been moved? Is there a user who has a temper? anything at all may be of help.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

This is from the bios

 Type Size Cyls Head Precomp Landz Sector Mode
 User 40018 4865 255 0 16382 63 LBA

And this is from a Western Digital diagnostic tool

 Model Number Serial Number
 WDC WD400BB-00AUA1 (IDE) WD-WMA6R23930

Now that I have the model number, I was able to find this page about the drive.

 Recommended Setup Parameters
 Cylinders: 16383
 Heads: 16
 Sectors/Track: 63
 Landing Zone: 16383
 WPC: 16383

I'm going to try changing the BIOS to match these settings. I don't think anyone messed around in the BIOS, though. (Perhaps a problem with the battery.) I'll post again after I see if this works or not.

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I just had a closer look at the specifications on Wester Digital's site about the drive, and it says it's a 40GB drive! I'm going to open the computer and see if the model number on the drive matches the model number that the WD Diagnostic tool is giving me and see if they match.

 

[Tekara]

hmm, possible victim of the 'ole switcheroo?

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I haven't had a chance to open this computer yet. Until then, I'm going to assume that I was just remembering the HDD's storage capacity inaccurately.

Thanks for helping anyway.