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ST910021AS Hard drive capacity problem
I just bought a dell inspiron e1705 with a 100GB 7200rpm sata harddrive pre-installed. When I check the hard drive capacity, it's about 91.75GB. Now don't jump up too soon I know that the 100GB is supposed to be 100000000000B physically, which is 10^11B/1024/1024/1024=93.13GB in windows. Still, it's about 1.4GB short. And yes, I counted all the partitions on the disk (Dell Utility, C, Dell Restore, etc.). So what's the catch? Thanks!
Message Edited by Decadent on 07-25-200604:21 PM
Entropy42
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July 26th, 2006 14:00
If I recall correctly, the way Dell MediaDirect works is to use a fully hidden partition that can only be accessed in certain BIOS modes, and when not in those modes the hard drive doesn't even report that are of the hard drive as existing.
I believe it's called Host Protected Area, but I could be wrong about the name.
Decadent
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July 26th, 2006 18:00
Decadent
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July 26th, 2006 19:00
Message Edited by Decadent on 07-26-200604:04 PM
dg1261
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July 26th, 2006 19:00
"When I check the hard drive capacity, it's about 91.75GB. ... "
See if this helps: www.goodells.net/dellrestore/mediadirect.htm.
"Is it still possible to reclaim the hidden space?"
To reclaim the space lost to the HPA, visit www.hgst.com and find Hitachi's "Feature Tool". This works on all hard disks, not just Hitachis, and includes a function to set the user addressable capacity of the hard disk. I believe Dell also has a tool to remove the HPA, but I don't recall if it might have been in one of the partitions you deleted.
BTW, since you are removing all the special Dell partitions, you should get rid of the Dell MBR, too. If you've reinstalled XP from CD then it has already overwritten the Dell MBR, but if not, I would use "fixmbr" or "fdisk /mbr" to make sure you zap the Dell MBR. Otherwise, the Dell MBR can put the HPA back after you've tried to delete it with Feature Tool.
Dan Goodell
Message Edited by dg1261 on 07-26-200601:56 PM
dg1261
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July 27th, 2006 08:00
Decadent
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July 28th, 2006 05:00
Message Edited by Decadent on 07-28-200601:49 AM
Decadent
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July 29th, 2006 02:00