Implied negative hard drive space with some software

[smoothrunes]

I reinstalled Windows 7 today in a bid to clean up my harddrive and start anew. However, I've noticed that certain programs seem to think I have no available space left, despite My Computer clearly shows I have about 2.55TB of space left. Something like MagicISO claimed that I needed to make about 1500000000K free or something along those lines. I tried to install Homeworld 2 as well, but that claims that I have negative disk space remaining with a number that is about 9-10 digits long. I managed to install Steam and some steam games without any trouble so I don't know what is causing this.

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

Can you check your SMART data on the hard drive using something like CrystalDiskInfo?

 

[smoothrunes]

Can you check your SMART data on the hard drive using something like CrystalDiskInfo?

I've downloaded and opened up CDI, can you tell what it is I need to check?

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

Pretty much everything - if anything's highlighted orange can you post them.

 

[smoothrunes]

Pretty much everything - if anything's highlighted orange can you post them.

All the things have come up with a blue icon next to them and it says the health status is good.

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

OK, great. Now try running chkdsk and sfc to ensure it's not an OS glitch.

 

[smoothrunes]

OK, great. Now try running chkdsk and sfc to ensure it's not an OS glitch.

I ran the command line chkdsk and nothing seemed to be off, it recognized the correct value of memory left and claimed there were no bad sectors.

 

[PizzaTheHutt]

And SFC?

 

[smoothrunes]

And SFC?

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

 

[Solandri]

Is your motherboard in UEFI mode or BIOS?

Your hard drive is > 2 TB so it needs to be partitioned with GPT to access the full drive space. Win 7 cannot boot GPT-partitioned drives in BIOS mode.
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/218619en?language=en_US

"GUID Partition Tables (GPT) can define drives larger than 2.2TB. You can use GPT today on any Windows 7 and Vista system as a non-booting data drive. Windows can only boot a GPT partition on a new type of BIOS called UEFI."

My guess would be you're in BIOS mode, and the drive is partitioned using some sort of hybrid-GPT/MBR scheme to allow Win 7 to boot. Some programs are picking up the GPT partitioning and saying you have plenty of space. Others are picking up the MBR partitioning, rolling over their counter (since your partition is bigger than the max size of a MBR partition), and acting as if you have negative disk space.

I've never dealt with Win 7 booting on a >2 TB drive in BIOS mode, so that's as much as I can help you. But perhaps it'll help narrow down your search for an answer. If your motherboard supports UEFI, try switching it to UEFI mode (and reinstall Win 7 if it still doesn't work).

 

[smoothrunes]

Is your motherboard in UEFI mode or BIOS?

Your hard drive is > 2 TB so it needs to be partitioned with GPT to access the full drive space. Win 7 cannot boot GPT-partitioned drives in BIOS mode.
http://knowledge.seagate.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/218619en?language=en_US

"GUID Partition Tables (GPT) can define drives larger than 2.2TB. You can use GPT today on any Windows 7 and Vista system as a non-booting data drive. Windows can only boot a GPT partition on a new type of BIOS called UEFI."

My guess would be you're in BIOS mode, and the drive is partitioned using some sort of hybrid-GPT/MBR scheme to allow Win 7 to boot. Some programs are picking up the GPT partitioning and saying you have plenty of space. Others are picking up the MBR partitioning, rolling over their counter (since your partition is bigger than the max size of a MBR partition), and acting as if you have negative disk space.

I've never dealt with Win 7 booting on a >2 TB drive in BIOS mode, so that's as much as I can help you. But perhaps it'll help narrow down your search for an answer. If your motherboard supports UEFI, try switching it to UEFI mode (and reinstall Win 7 if it still doesn't work).

If all else fails, could I just install stuff to an external drive and then put it back on my HDD once the install process has been done?

EDIT: I got Homeworld 2 working by installing the game to my external harddrive then copying the root folder with everything in it into my Program Files just like it was before I reinstalled Windows, so i guess this is a temporary workaround and I don't have many other disc based games so I shouldn't have to come acros this often.