Welcome to Vista Banter. You are currently viewing our boards as a guest which gives you limited access to view most discussions, articles and access our other FREE features. By joining our free community you will have access to ask questions and reply to others posts, upload your own photos and access many other special features. Registration is fast, simple and absolutely free so please, join our community today! If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact contact support. |
|
Hardware and Windows Vista Hardware issues in relation to Windows Vista. (microsoft.public.windows.vista.hardware_devices) |
|
LinkBack | Thread Tools | Display Modes |
|
|||
Hard drive gone
I have a Maxtor 300 GB hard drive that I formatted, installed Vista, and
later decided the support just wasn't there for even basic drivers that I needed and went back to Windows XP. Unfortunately I have not been able to get any use out of this drive afterward as it is now only showing 31.49GB no matter what I do, be it formatting or anything. Luckily I had a backup 120MB Maxtor hard drive that I am operating from now. The problem is, back in XP, both drives show up in BIOS, Device manager, and My computer manager, however in all three, the 300GB device that I had installed Vista on still only shows 31.49GB and I cannot figure out how to get full use out of it again. I've tried all different utilities, low level formats, complete formats, yet nothing increases the amount of space on the hard drive. I've tried installing OS (both Vista and XP) on the culprit drive and they both only show 31.4GB. Is it possible that the installation of Vista has permanently ruined the hard drive? |
|
|||
Hard drive gone
Did you have any form of encription on that drive when Vista was on?
"Jeramie" wrote: I have a Maxtor 300 GB hard drive that I formatted, installed Vista, and later decided the support just wasn't there for even basic drivers that I needed and went back to Windows XP. Unfortunately I have not been able to get any use out of this drive afterward as it is now only showing 31.49GB no matter what I do, be it formatting or anything. Luckily I had a backup 120MB Maxtor hard drive that I am operating from now. The problem is, back in XP, both drives show up in BIOS, Device manager, and My computer manager, however in all three, the 300GB device that I had installed Vista on still only shows 31.49GB and I cannot figure out how to get full use out of it again. I've tried all different utilities, low level formats, complete formats, yet nothing increases the amount of space on the hard drive. I've tried installing OS (both Vista and XP) on the culprit drive and they both only show 31.4GB. Is it possible that the installation of Vista has permanently ruined the hard drive? |
|
|||
Hard drive gone
Hello
there is one way to fix it, if you have a external hard drive or cd (USB) you can take the drive out and hook up your screwed up drive to the USB adapter (unplugged of course) and reformat it. i.e. a laptop or other computer that will remove all that system info that is on there. (not sure where, but it is) this has worked very well for me on this same sort of stuff good luck, I am considering giving up on the RC "1" install -- "There''s Things I am and Things I''m Not" "Jeramie" wrote: I have a Maxtor 300 GB hard drive that I formatted, installed Vista, and later decided the support just wasn't there for even basic drivers that I needed and went back to Windows XP. Unfortunately I have not been able to get any use out of this drive afterward as it is now only showing 31.49GB no matter what I do, be it formatting or anything. Luckily I had a backup 120MB Maxtor hard drive that I am operating from now. The problem is, back in XP, both drives show up in BIOS, Device manager, and My computer manager, however in all three, the 300GB device that I had installed Vista on still only shows 31.49GB and I cannot figure out how to get full use out of it again. I've tried all different utilities, low level formats, complete formats, yet nothing increases the amount of space on the hard drive. I've tried installing OS (both Vista and XP) on the culprit drive and they both only show 31.4GB. Is it possible that the installation of Vista has permanently ruined the hard drive? |
|
|||
Hard drive gone
1. I had a Vista problem that was different from yours but there's a small
chance that it might help you. I don't know what effect a low level format has on most modern disk drives and didn't know that there were still utilities to do it, but anyway if it didn't zero out your MBR then it's still possible for XP to be confused by your corrupted MBR. In my case a Vista crash wrote its memory dump to the MBR and elsewhere instead of to a file in its own partition, so Windows 2000 couldn't recover it. I booted a Knoppix DVD and gnu's "gpart" command did some really good guessing, the 50% that it got right included the correct starting sector of every partition. Then gnu's "fdisk" command could recreate the partitions and write a valid MBR. All of the files in the Vista partition became visible again, but Vista wouldn't boot. I booted the Vista DVD and did a repair to the booter, after which Vista booted but couldn't execute most programs because its self-repair screwed up its drive letters. More repair operations could temporarily repair the drive letters but they didn't stick. This resulted in around 3 bug reports on the Connect site, most of which are closed without explanation, but one of which was closed and then reopened and then closed saying it's not reproducible. The current ability to boot but inability to execute most programs is 100% reproducible, that's why the bug report is closed without explanation. Anyway, try booting a Knoppix DVD and see if gpart and fdisk can repair your partition structure. 2. I had a Maxtor problem that was different from yours but not completely different. I was able to install Windows 2000 onto it, once. After that the drive's self-identification told the BIOS that the drive had zero size. So there is something in the drive's firmware that is capable of being damaged this way, and I don't know any way to repair it. The drive was replaced under warranty. "Jeramie" wrote in message ... I have a Maxtor 300 GB hard drive that I formatted, installed Vista, and later decided the support just wasn't there for even basic drivers that I needed and went back to Windows XP. Unfortunately I have not been able to get any use out of this drive afterward as it is now only showing 31.49GB no matter what I do, be it formatting or anything. Luckily I had a backup 120MB Maxtor hard drive that I am operating from now. The problem is, back in XP, both drives show up in BIOS, Device manager, and My computer manager, however in all three, the 300GB device that I had installed Vista on still only shows 31.49GB and I cannot figure out how to get full use out of it again. I've tried all different utilities, low level formats, complete formats, yet nothing increases the amount of space on the hard drive. I've tried installing OS (both Vista and XP) on the culprit drive and they both only show 31.4GB. Is it possible that the installation of Vista has permanently ruined the hard drive? |