Hi, I just used the win ME boot version of fdisk to partion a empty 12 gb hard drive into 2 partitions - one 4 gb partion and one 8 gb extended partion...everything worked fine (i think). But I changed my mind on how I wanted the partition size so I deleted the partions to re-do the new partions. I re-boot and now fdisk says my 12 gb drive is only a 8 gb drive! The drive partion info says there is no partions left on the disk but it is still saying that it is 8 gb when it should say 12 gb like before. Win 2000 partion utility states the drive correctly as 12 gb and will partion it there...but still when I boot it back to the win ME boot disk fdisk still say the drive is only 8 gb Pleeeeeease Help if you can! Thanks ???

Marty Birmingham

Well, one has to think that Fdisk did not fully remove data in the partition table that *it* sees, but Win 2000 is not effected by the stray data.

You may need to use a *wipe* program that also gets at the Master Boot Record (MBR) where partition tables and boot sectors are present.

If you have Ghost 2003, the *Gdisk* that runs in true DOS has the capability to wipe the MBR.  There is a *Gdisk32* that runs under Windows--but, I believe the *wipe* function does not work under that version.

On Rad's download page (Downloadable Files), there is a program to delete hard to get rid of partitions, Delpart.exe.  But that will probably only help if the partition shows up as being there!

Some HDD manufacturers have their own programs for testing and evaluating the health of their HDD's--some of these may work okay on any brand HDD--but they always say they don't support that--but I have used the IBM-Hitachi Hard Drives Drive Fitness Test which will wipe the MBR.  A Google search on Drive Fitness Test gives multiple sources, for instance here.

A word of caution--it's always best to have only the HDD you are going to *wipe* on the system, so you do not accidentally choose the wrong HDD!

Hope this gets you looking in the right direction.  Let us know how things turn out.

When your current HDD just might need a thorough purging, then here is one way to do it:

(1) generate a 3.5 inch boot disk in a WIN 98SE environment;

(2) load whatever Norton SystemWorks CD you have onhand and use the SEARCH feature to look for GDISK.EXE (it is in D:\SUPPORT\GHOST on my PC); and

(3) mount the floppy boot disk and use the SEND TO feature to copy GDISK.EXE over to the A: drive.

When you are ABSOLUTELY sure that you have a secure image to restore from, start off by booting up with the modified floppy and repeatedly using the following command in iterative fashion:

GDISK n /STATUS

to ascertain which Arabic numeral ('1' through '3' in my world, with '3' being the correct HDD) represents the target HDD for renovation.  Next, use the command:

GDISK 3 /DISKWIPE

to totally obliterate the entire disk, partitions, partition table, MBR, and all used or unused space on the external HDD.

Then, boot up with manufacturer-provided CD software such as 'Seagate DiscWizard for Windows' to target and initialize the "scrubbed" disk in preparation for whatever subsequent restoration procedures you deem fit.  Admittedly, there are probably well over a dozen approaches to arriving at this point - this just happens to be one that works great for me.

EP :'(

Hi, Thank you both for your sugestions. I did not have Norton gdisk but I did try the free download of Hitachi/IBM Drive Fitness Test
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/download.htm
Fitness test read the hard drive correctly as 12 gb. I was able to wipe the complete drive and MBR easily with Fitness Test because it was an IBM drive. But still after I booted back into Win ME fdisk and tried make partions again it stated that the 12 gb drive had only 8 gb. So then I put the Win 2000 set up disk in and it read the disk correctly as 12 gb. I made 2 partions with win 2000 set up (5 & 7 gb's). At this point I really did not care what fdisk read the drive as because everything else was reading it correctly but I booted the newly partioned drive to fdisk again. Now fdisk stated I had an 8gb drive with a 5 gb and 7 gb partion!!!

I finally decide to take the drive out of the computer and place it in another computer. When I booted the same drive to fdisk in another computer it read it correctly as 12 gb total.

Anyway the drive now has an Windows installed on it and is working perfectly. I'll try to put the fdisk situation out of my mind. Thanks again for the help

Here is an interesting follow up to this. I just bought a new 200 gb hard drive and placed it into the same computer that was having problems using fdisk (the situation I wrote about in the messages above) The Win ME boot fdisk reads this new 200 gb hard as 8 gb also. So there must be something stuck in this computer's memory or BIOS that fdisk is getting incorrect infomation from

Marty Birmingham

Just a thought, but maybe you have the *old* fdisk program that doesn't *understand* large HDD's--or are you using the same boot disk with fdisk on it on the other computers and it works okay?

If that's the case, then you may be dealing with a BIOS problem that only occurs in DOS, but Win2000 does not *inherit* the information of the BIOS, but queries the HDD directly while loading Windows, and reports the correct HDD size.

I had that issue one time.  I finally solved it by deleting all the partitions off the dirve and then writing the empty partition table to the drive before creating any new partitions.  It might not apply in this case since it is happening with another drive as well, but it's just a thought.