External hard drive not showing correct gig capacity

[cbsm1]

Hello,
I have a hard drive from a dead computer that I put into an external case to use as a backup drive. It is a seagate 500g drive, but when connected, it only shows 13.6g capacity. How can I get this external to show full capacity so I can use it as my backup: ps I am not a computer guru so laymans terms please....

 

[austin_louis]

I am not going to try it on my external drive, but I looked up the tools that in windows 7, and here is what I think you need to do. The (maybe) bad news is that you will lose all data on the drive. The good news is that even if something goes wrong, we can just try a different route without hurting anything.

OK. So the easiest way to get to the tool you need is to go to the start menu and, in the search bar at the bottom, type in 'disk management'. The first thing which comes up should be a utility which is called "create and format hard disk partitions". Click on this, and it should bring up a window which says "loading disk configuration information". When it is done gathering this information, it will show a display with all of the drives connected to your computer. Carefully identify the one you want; you are actually pretty safe since I think that you will only your primary drive, the one you want to format, and a CD drive. It won't allow you to format your primary partition on your main drive, you most likely can't format what's in your CD drive, which leaves only the one you want available for formatting. Still, identify it positively before doing anything to it.

When you have identified it, right-click on each partition on the drive and "delete volume". If this option is grayed out, you are probably trying to delete something on your main drive. Once you have deleted all partitions, right click on the empty space created and tell it to do a format. If given the option, do a full format and format the drive as NTFS. You will be able to name the drive, and when it is done you should have a full sized and fully functional drive. The one thing to watch out for is NEVER turn off the power on a drive which is formatting - this is the one thing which I have heard will probably damage a drive. Best not to take chances. Like I said, I'm not testing the steps myself right now, so something may not work. If this is the case or if I wasn't clear on a point, just post and I'll try to sort it out.

Hello There,
I was having similar problem with my seagate 1TB external hard drive as well. I formatted it earlier and was showing only 39.5 GB total space. So, tried to follow the instructions you mentioned on the top. However, after performing "delete volume", it removed the drive from "section 1" (as you have showed while answering another question). Now, I am not sure where to click as you have said, " Once you have deleted all partitions, right click on the empty space created and tell it to do a format" . I have tried to click in the same place where the drive was before, but nothing happens. Can you please advise me further? Thank you

 

[austin_louis]

I am not going to try it on my external drive, but I looked up the tools that in windows 7, and here is what I think you need to do. The (maybe) bad news is that you will lose all data on the drive. The good news is that even if something goes wrong, we can just try a different route without hurting anything.

OK. So the easiest way to get to the tool you need is to go to the start menu and, in the search bar at the bottom, type in 'disk management'. The first thing which comes up should be a utility which is called "create and format hard disk partitions". Click on this, and it should bring up a window which says "loading disk configuration information". When it is done gathering this information, it will show a display with all of the drives connected to your computer. Carefully identify the one you want; you are actually pretty safe since I think that you will only your primary drive, the one you want to format, and a CD drive. It won't allow you to format your primary partition on your main drive, you most likely can't format what's in your CD drive, which leaves only the one you want available for formatting. Still, identify it positively before doing anything to it.

When you have identified it, right-click on each partition on the drive and "delete volume". If this option is grayed out, you are probably trying to delete something on your main drive. Once you have deleted all partitions, right click on the empty space created and tell it to do a format. If given the option, do a full format and format the drive as NTFS. You will be able to name the drive, and when it is done you should have a full sized and fully functional drive. The one thing to watch out for is NEVER turn off the power on a drive which is formatting - this is the one thing which I have heard will probably damage a drive. Best not to take chances. Like I said, I'm not testing the steps myself right now, so something may not work. If this is the case or if I wasn't clear on a point, just post and I'll try to sort it out.

Hello There,
I was having similar problem with my seagate 1TB external hard drive as well. I formatted it earlier and was showing only 39.5 GB total space. So, tried to follow the instructions you mentioned on the top. However, after performing "delete volume", it removed the drive from "section 1" (as you have showed while answering another question). Now, I am not sure where to click as you have said, " Once you have deleted all partitions, right click on the empty space created and tell it to do a format" . I have tried to click in the same place where the drive was before, but nothing happens. Can you please advise me further? Thank you

 

[kmm4465]

I am having the same problem. I too am using Windows 7. My external drive should be 500 gb but it's only using 32.

The most likely reason is that you are accessing a partition of the drive which doesn't fill up the whole thing. You can think of the drive as a big crate, and a partition of course splits off part of it to use as its own box. If you can tell me what operating system you have, I can give you instructions on how to re-format the drive which will clean off all existing data and partitions and leave you with a nice empty and almost as good as new drive.

 

[trolleytom]

I DID IT !!!!!! Wow, it was fast, and easy. Thank you so very much for all of your help. I never would have been able to figure it out. This forum (and you ) are great !!!

I'd like to say thanks as well. 4 and a half years after this post I had the same problem, and the solution is still working brilliantly.

 

[Lexie5252]

hi there
im having a similar problem I have a 1TB hard drive and I had to back up my windows on it but once I had finished with it I formatted the disk and went to use it again only its only showing as a 39.9GB disk now

any idea on how I can get it back to normal please be aware im not that great on laptops so as much detail as possible is needed if possible

thank you