[SOLVED] reinstating hard drive partition

[enTerbury]

what i did:

1. bought a new 2tb internal hard drive.
2. plugged it into my existing system.
3. formatted it for use with win10, but didnt use it.
4. got it out and into a new tower where i wanted to install win10 on it with a boot stick.
5. it showed me 2 drives, one of which, i thought, showed what i formatted on windows. so i deleted and formatted it. now i somehow ended up with it only showing a 2gb drive and partition. i cant "add" or format new space.
6. obviously i can't install windows on the 2gb drive, even if i format it. how do i get the 2tb "back"? do i need to format it again in my first tower? note that i dont want to recover data, just the drive space.

thanks a lot in advance.

 

[alceryes]

During the Windows 10 setup you can delete all partitions to the whole drive.

 

[enTerbury]

During the Windows 10 setup you can delete all partitions to the whole drive.

this is what i see during the setup. i can delete the 2gb partition, but i cant find a way to reinstate my 2tb.

 

[alceryes]

That's very odd.
It's almost like it's not recognizing your hard drive. Do you have another USB drive plugged in?

 

[enTerbury]

That's very odd.
It's almost like it's not recognizing your hard drive. Do you have another USB drive plugged in?

no, only win10 usb and the hard drive. no other storage device.
im not sure if it recognised 2tb to begin with. but it had two drives, i deleted the MSR one.

 

[USAFRet]

this is what i see during the setup. i can delete the 2gb partition, but i cant find a way to reinstate my 2tb.

Delete that 2GB
Select New. What options does it give you?

 

[enTerbury]

Delete that 2GB
Select New. What options does it give you?

select size from 7 to 2047 mb.
it still shows 2gb in the list, as "unallocated space"

 

[alceryes]

Reboot and go into BIOS to make sure the 2TB drive is recognized.
Wait, you said you have two drives...? Unplug all drives except the one you want to install Windows on then check to see if it's recognized in BIOS.

 

[enTerbury]

Reboot and go into BIOS to make sure the 2TB drive is recognized.
Wait, you said you have two drives...? Unplug all drives except the one you want to install Windows on then check to see if it's recognized in BIOS.

yes, it shows 2 devices: the uefi usb, and a toshiba. that's the device for which it showed me 2tb of space in my first tower.

 

[alceryes]

Please list here all the info BIOS lists for all drives recognized.

 

[enTerbury]

Please list here all the info BIOS lists for all drives recognized.

which info do you mean exactly? just the names?

 

[enTerbury]

Please list here all the info BIOS lists for all drives recognized.

i cant really find much info on the hard drives there. i didnt buy the fanciest mb so the bios is pretty basic. its the biostar a320mh with a32es117.bss
all i find is
UEFI: Generic Flash Disk 8.07, Partition 1
P4: TOSHIBA HDWD120

and in the SATA list
TOSHIBA HDWD120 (2000.3GB)

 

[enTerbury]

Please list here all the info BIOS lists for all drives recognized.

i now plugged it back into tower 1.
windows disk management says 2GB, but BIOS says 2TB.
I'm kinda confused. could the boot drive have broken it?

 

[dalaran]

windows disk management says 2GB, but BIOS says 2TB.

It says 2Gb on the partition itself or the whole disk? My guess is you're looking at the partition itself, delete the partition, and create new one. Which should allow you to use the whole disk, if neither the windows disk management tool or windows installer seems to want to properly recognize the whole disk as 2 Tb something might be messed you with the partition table for some reason. Edit: If windows lets you delete the partition, delete it then reboots the machine. Then see if you can create a partition with more than 2 Gb afterwards.

You can try another tool such as Gparted under linux to delete the existing partition.
I havent used that in a while, but some linux live CD images include gparted by default another option is to use the following which includes only gparted so it's much smaller
https://gparted.org/liveusb.php

Another option would be to look at the drive manufacturer website for any tools they might provide to diagnose the drive.

 

[enTerbury]

It says 2Gb on the partition itself or the whole disk? My guess is you're looking at the partition itself, delete the partition, and create new one. Which should allow you to use the whole disk, if neither the windows disk management tool or windows installer seems to want to properly recognize the whole disk as 2 Tb something might be messed you with the partition table for some reason. Edit: If windows lets you delete the partition, delete it then reboots the machine. Then see if you can create a partition with more than 2 Gb afterwards.

You can try another tool such as Gparted under linux to delete the existing partition.
I havent used that in a while, but some linux live CD images include gparted by default another option is to use the following which includes only gparted so it's much smaller
https://gparted.org/liveusb.php

Another option would be to look at the drive manufacturer website for any tools they might provide to diagnose the drive.

it shows 2gb before and after partitioning. deleting the partition doesn't help, if it were a 2gb partition only it would probably show me the rest as unallocated space. it doesn't. bios is the only place where it shows 2tb now.
i think i messed up smth with the mbr/msr. i tried to redo it with an online instruction, but it didnt help. i guess i will just send it back, cost me a lot of time already.
anyway, thanks everybody!
note to self: just dont mess with things you dont understand and try to make everything perfect...

 

[dalaran]

if it were a 2gb partition only it would probably show me the rest as unallocated space.

yes it would

 

[alceryes]

Update your motherboard to its newest BIOS. Also, while the drive is in your other system can you do a 'diskpart' and 'clean'? Then reboot and see how much space is showing available.

See here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/diskpart

 

[enTerbury]

Update your motherboard to its newest BIOS. Also, while the drive is in your other system can you do a 'diskpart' and 'clean'? Then reboot and see how much space is showing available.

See here - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/diskpart

i actually did that diskpart and clean thing, but sadly it didnt help. i returned the drive.