Theslaz said:
Actually it was my external backup drive. Some back up!!! I removed the
drive and hooked it up via a USB adapter. It is a SATA drive; but my
computer does not except Sata drives; therefore I had to use a adapter!
If you use PTEDIT32, how many partitions can you see ? This is
part of the commercial Partition Magic package, but is offered
by Symantec for download.
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/tools/pq/utilities/PTEDIT32.zip
The tool shows the primary partition entries. In this example,
there are four partitions. The size of the disk is also
declared at the top of the screen.
http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c5/ghostimage/PTEditVista.jpg
I know of two other ways to shrink a disk, besides filling partitions.
There is apparently an option in the ATA command set, to change the
geometry of the disk. Now, your claim of "23.5GB", does not line up with such
geometry changes. See page 16, which shows 8GB, 32GB, 128GB, and "max capacity"
as options.
http://www.hitachigst.com/hdd/support/downloads/FTool_User_Guide.pdf
A second way to shrink a disk, is with a Host Protected Area (HPA), but
those don't happen "by accident". Many BIOS protect the computer from
creating an HPA (so malware cannot do it). I don't think I could make
an HPA, even if I wanted to.
I would try PTEDIT32, or whatever other tools you know of, which
report drive size. In Linux, for example, doing
dmesg | grep sda
would tell me the size of the SDA drive, as detected during boot.
In Windows, I use Partition Magic and its "Info" window, to get
an exact sector count for a drive. Those are the two ways I know
of right off hand. Many other tools will give approximate sizes,
but sometimes I need an exact sector count.
Oh, I do know of another way to shrink the claimed size. If the
hard drive controller board, cannot access the platters on the
hard drive, some controller boards will report a "default" and
silly size (a value stored in their firmware). I had a 40GB Maxtor,
that suddenly claimed it was a 10GB drive. Of course, none of my
data was accessible, and the claim of being a 10GB drive was bogus.
You could not do anything with the drive, except look at it in
the BIOS screen.
Also, if you have an IDE computer, and want to access a SATA
drive, you can use one of these. This device, plugs into the
back of the hard drive. Then, you plug the IDE cable, onto the
gold pins. It is kinda hard, to get the cable off again
afterwards. It seemed to work OK for me when I needed it.
(IDE motherboard to SATA hard drive)
http://www.startech.com/item/IDE2SAT-IDE-to-SATA-Drive-Mounted-Adapter.aspx
I selected that particular brand, because it comes with the necessary
power cable to make the little adapter work. Not all the devices
like this, include the power cable.
http://www.startech.com/Share/Gallery/Large/IDE2SAT.Dlarge.jpg
Paul
