I had a 40 gig Seagate barracuda in a windows 98 machine. In order to be able to "see" the full capacity of the HD, I had to partition it into 2.

Now, I am using that HD in an XP machine. While installing XP, I was presented with a menu. I DELETED the second partition. I then installed XP.

NOW, stuff runs slow. Under my computer, it looks like I have a HD with a size of about 20 gig.

HOW do I repair my HD? How do I make it a FULL 40 gig partition again? If I have to do a fresh reinstall of XP, that is OK. I would actually prefer to fix, then reformat the whole thing...

I am cool with using the command prompt.  

Any assistance would be appreciated.

mug

The easiest way is to reinstall XP.  When you get up to the menu choice that you deleted the second partition the first time, just delete all the partitions on that drive.  Then select drive to install XP on.  Format it as NTFS if you are only going to use XP on that computer.

The other way to do it is to use a tool like partition magic to resize your partition.  But as you said, your computer isn't running well, so it's better to format the drive and install fresh.

Never ever ever EVER use just one partition on a computer. That's a good way to get hosed when the latest and greatest virus comes down the pipe. With a 40 gig drive I'd suggest doing 1 partition with 2 - 5 gigs and making that for WINDOWS ONLY! The last 35 gigs give to 5, 7 gig partitions to use as you see fit or any other combination of sizes.

1. check the jumper configuration on the back of the drive. Most drives of that size have the option to limit the drive size for compatability reasons.

2. Download the seagate diagnostics. Run a diagnostic on the drive to make sure it's ok. Then use the drive erase/zeroing utility on the disk to totaly wipe the drive.

3. boot from the XP disk, make sure it recognizes the full capacity of the drive and format NTFS.

They don't make 40 gigers anymore, but you can still find them. Some of us (me) can only hold 2 hdd's in our case at any given time, I use a Shuttle XPC. My choice was either a floppy drive or a second HDD and currently that spot is not in use.

Other thing is not all of us have a Circuit City or Best Buy near by, the closest to me are both ~3 hours away. Nor do we have the income to spare on additional hard drives.

Okay Virii may attack the boot sector, let them since nothing gets into my computer. That's the benefit of using linux. I can play the few games that interest me, I can brows the net in complete safety, and my OS is built like a tank.

FYI,

SamsClub has 160 GIG ones for $99.00.

www.samsclub.com/eclub/main_shopping.jsp?n=0&oidPath=0%3a-23542%3a-33761%3a-33794%3a-33796%3a686974&coe=0&BV_SessionID=_SC_1925020832.1093702501_CS_&BV_EngineID=ccdgadcmgimgkjjcfkfcfkjdgoodflg.0