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emachines M6809 shows wrong hard drive size

post #1 of 14
12/30/09 at 11:50pm
Thread Starter 
I still use this older laptop and thought I'd bring some new live into it.
I installed a new DVD burner and upgraded to 2gig memory and that was a great improvement and worked fine.

However, I also installed a new hard drive, since I want to use this laptop to store some backup files from my main pc.
The HD is a 320gb WD3200BEVE,
my BIOS is the one that was available as latest back in 05 (0F08 P00) and all I can do is set it to Auto.
I installed Windows 7 64bit and everything runs perfect and I'm very happy with it, except the HD space shows up as 138gb total.
Is there anything I can do in Win 7 to get to use the other 200gb of space or should I sell this drive and get a 160gb drive?
I'd really like to keep this drive but don't want to wast the money for space I won't get.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

David
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post #2 of 14
12/31/09 at 2:42am
weird, I didnt think that BIOS had that limitation.

unfortunately if it does, theres not really a way to force it to be able to use over that. might be able to split it up into smaller partitions to go over but that only works some of the time
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post #3 of 14
12/31/09 at 7:55am
Sadly it does have that limitation Splitting up in partitions that is what I am doing on my m6805.

cheers ...
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post #4 of 14
12/31/09 at 10:07am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by qhn View Post
Sadly it does have that limitation Splitting up in partitions that is what I am doing on my m6805.

cheers ...
OK, How do I do this splitting up?
Can I just make it 2X90gb in addition to add to the already 138gb, or do I need to reinstall Win 7 and start off with 3X106?

Is there a site that would show me how to do that?

Thank you for your help.

David
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post #5 of 14
12/31/09 at 10:19am
You can use Easus tools (free on the net) and partition the drive. No need to re-install OS. Then you can go into disk management and flag the partitions as active.

cheers ...
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post #6 of 14
12/31/09 at 10:36am
Thread Starter 
I just looked at EASEUS Partition Master, it's only free for 32bit versions.
I couldn't find any other program for free.

Do you know of any other, or should I just pay them for the 64bit version?

David
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post #7 of 14
12/31/09 at 10:51am
Try this:

. Download and create a GPart Live CD

. Boot up from there and create your partitions, format them in NTFS whilst you are it.

. Boot back to Windows and use disk management as discussed.

cheers ...
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post #8 of 14
12/31/09 at 12:08pm
Thread Starter 
I'm not sure what went wrong:
I created a bootable disk with partition manager.
I booted up with it and it saw the rest of my drive.
I clicked on that partition and I formated it.
It now shows the following:

* System Reserved NTSF 100.00MB 24.29MB 75.71MB none Primary
* NTSF 127.90GB 12.94GB 114.96GB none Primary
* NTSF 170.00GB 69.75MB 170.02GB none Logical

Windows doesn't boot anymore.
I have no problem reinstalling Win7, since it's a new install anyways, but even that doesn't work, as soon as the installation starts, where you would chose the drive, it doesn't show any drive.
It says there is no drive installed.
Did I screw up and killed the drive?

David
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post #9 of 14
12/31/09 at 12:48pm
No, you did not kill the drive

Somehow the reformat clobbered the boot file (MBR) from Windows. Boot up with your W7 disk and follow the instruction to repair the W7 partition.

cheers ...
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post #10 of 14
12/31/09 at 1:19pm
Thread Starter 
no go,
if I ask win7 to repair the startup, it does something.
I can click on check log and the last entry is: partition table is corrupt, repaired successfully error code 0X0

but obviously it wasn't successful, since when I restart, win7 installation doesn't see any drive.
It's funny, with EASEUS Partition Master, I can see all my files and folders.
Can I just somehow start from scratch and have EPM just make 2 drives at 160GB each?
Or just back to the original 320GB drive?

What is that third drive anyways, the small 100MB one?

I tried to set any of them Active, but that doesn't change anything either.

I'm glad you're around, thank you.

David
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post #11 of 14
12/31/09 at 1:35pm
Sorry to hear about the issues you had with Gpart, I use it all the time and just recently to partition my drives.

Since you have 320gb, I personally would partition it into 120/200 for Vista&W7, for XP I would do it in 120/120/80. Use the 1st 120 for OS in any cases.

cheers ...
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post #12 of 14
1/4/10 at 3:37pm
Thread Starter 
Over the past few days I have tried everything I know possible.
I used EASEUS Partition Master and also Gpart.
Both programs are able to see the partition/s made by the other, but no matter how large/small or how many partitions I make, the Win7 install CD never sees the drive.
Since the difference in cost (by the time I pay shipping) is only $25, I have decided to keep this drive.
Who knows, maybe someday I find another program and it works.

I'll take a little brake and enjoy cruising the internet with this laptop, before I try to upgrade the CPU from a 3200 to a 4000, but that will be another thread (only if I have problems).

Thank you for your help, it was definitely worth the try.

David
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post #13 of 14
1/4/10 at 3:54pm
I am wondering if you can try to install W7 from another system (desktop preferably) with the drive and the partitions that you made. Just an installation with no drivers or anything in it, and make the installation on C:

Now see if you can pop that in the eMachines afterward and make it start.

cheers ...
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post #14 of 14
1/9/10 at 12:22am
Thread Starter 
I'll keep that in mind.
Thank you

David
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