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Lost disc space after system recovery


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#1
Nurse27

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I have 2 hard drives which are factory installed. One is the C drive, and the other one is D drive. I did a system recovery after saving everything I had on to an external hard drive. When it was all done, I re booted computer and realized that C drive was back to factory settings, but the D drive still contained all my files and folders.

This time around, I took out my C drive and left the D drive in the computer and did a system recover on it. When I was done, I put C drive back and re started computer. Everything is alright except for the fact that my D drive shows that only 18GB is left out of 24GB. Where did all my disc space go?? The C drive shows 65GB out of 84GB left, which is fine because thats how it was in the beginnning too. My computer came with 200GB Dual hard drive. I know they didnt every equal 100GB each, but about 84GB each. now it only shows 24GB in the D drive. It also has bunch of files in it that I have never seen. It wont let me attach a file so I can't show you a print screen of it, but these are the folders and last 3 are files: Hope you can help!!

APPL.ZIP
boot
Global
MCPP
sources
ST_RP
SwSetup
USWV32HP
Vista.32
vista.64
vista.all
bootmgr
CSPU.DAT
INFO.BOM


Thanks!!! Christina

Edited by Nurse27, 11 April 2012 - 04:51 AM.

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#2
Nurse27

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UPDATE: I went into computer management and then into Disk management, and it shows

OS (C:)
86.03 GB NTFS
Healthy (System, Boot, Page file, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)

OS (D:)
24.02 GB NTFS
Healthy (Active, Primary Partition)

HP_RECOVERY (E:)
7.12 GB NTFS
Healthy (Primary Partition

Then in Black it shows:
69.14 GB Unallocated

Thats where the rest of the GB's are! But I don't know how to get it back in D drive and I don't know why this happened. Factory settings, the D drive was NOT a partition, it was a seperate drive.

On the side of all this it shows that C and D drive each should have 93.16 GB, give or take of course.

PLEASE Someone help!!
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#3
rshaffer61

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Go to Start then to Run
Type in compmgmt.msc and click Enter
On left side click on Disk Management
On right side you will see you hard drive.
Now I need you to take a screenshot and attach it to your next reply. Do the following to take a screenshot while the above is open and showing on your desktop.

To do a screenshot please have click on your Print Screen on your keyboard. It is normally the key above your number pad between the F12 key and the Scroll Lock key
Now go to Start and then to All Programs
Scroll to Accessories and then click on Paint
In the Empty White Area click and hold the CTRL key and then click the V
Go to the File option at the top and click on Save as
Save as file type JPEG and save it to your Desktop


Attach it to your next reply
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#4
Nurse27

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Thank you for replying! Attached is the screen shot.

Screenshot.jpg
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#5
rshaffer61

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You did good but I need you to stretch the window to the right so I can see all the information at the top please. Redo the steps and make sure the window is wide enough to show everything before taking the screenshot. :thumbsup:
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#6
Nurse27

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Hey sorry! Hope this is better, and sorry it took so long to reply. I work night shift so wasn't able to send it to you until now. Again thanks for trying to help!!

screenshot2.jpg
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#7
rshaffer61

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OK not sure what you are describing as the partition with only 709mb of free space is your recovery partition and nothing should be saved to that partition under any circumstance. The other drives seem to be in great shape.
That recovery is the system image of your OS, drivers and all programs when the system was new. Without a OS and drivers disk this is the only way to recover your system.
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#8
Nurse27

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I guess I'm a bit confused on what your trying to say.

The partition with 709MB left on it is the Recovery partition yes. I have never saved anyting on it myself.

My issue is with the OS (D) drive. When I go to my computer, or even in the Disk management as you can see, only shows 24GB Capacity on it. It wasn't like that before I did the system recovery. It also says that the OS (D) drive is a primary partition, which once again, wasn't like that before. My D drive was always a second drive with as much space on it, give and take, as the OS © drive.

Now it says I have 69.14GB unallocated. What does that mean and why isn't it part of the D drive like it used to be. Attached is what shows up under My computer for D drive. The space is 24GB capacity, which isn't right.

And why is my Recovery drive E so full?

Sorry if I'm not making sense, but I know this all changed after i did the system recovery on the D drive (Which i don't know why i even did, i shouldn't have) :)

Untitled.jpg
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#9
rshaffer61

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OK now I understand what you are saying.
The unallocated can be correct by first Right Click on the Unallocated partition and see if there is a Delete Partition option. If so click that and then right click on the D drive and see if you can stretch the D partition to take all the empty space from the previous step.

Also I need you to do the following so I can see your boot.ini file.




Please do the following in the exact steps. Failure to do so could make the boot.ini damaged and cause unstable or unusable results with your system.:

Save a Backup Copy of Boot.ini

1. Click Start, click Run, type sysdm.cpl and then click OK.
2. Click on the Advanced tab, and then click Settings
3. In the Startup and Recovery area at the bottom click Settings.
4. Under System Startup click Edit. This opens the Boot.ini file in Notepad ready for editing.
5. In Notepad, click File on the Menu bar, and then click Save As.
6. First in here change the location in the top white drop down box to Desktop. Then in the file name change to Boot.old and save as Text Document(*.txt) and save it to your Desktop and then click Save



Please copy and paste all the lines from your Boot.ini file in your next reply.





[b]Sample Boot.ini File



[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
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#10
rshaffer61

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The above instructions for getting the boot.ini are for XP so you would need to click on the Windows globe down at the bottom left of your desktop.
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#11
Macboatmaster

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Does this help as well
As the unallocated space has no drive letter you may proceed with this as described by my colleague rshaffer61

Right click on the partition (D ) that is just to the left of the unallocated space that you want to Extend it into, and click on Extend Volume

http://www.vistax64....ete-extend.html
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#12
iammykyl

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In Post $1, Nurse27 say's.

This time around, I took out my C drive and left the D drive in the computer and did a system recover on it


Has a second set of recovery files been place in the Drive? or other files?
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#13
rshaffer61

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So it is even more important now to see the boot information to see exactly which drive is booting now.
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#14
Macboatmaster

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My guess is that a second complete operating system has been installed on D drive from the recovery partition and when the option was presented for which size of partition to use it was chosen as the size less the portion of the drive that is now unallocated, but as rshaffer61 says, the bcd - boot configuration data (for the benefit of Nurse27) will surely provide the answer

However as C drive was not in the computer at the time, it appears if I am right that each drive will have its own separate BCD and if he was to select boot options, he may then boot into windows from either drive.

If I am correct I do not of course expect that the bcdedit on C drive will show anything other than the original BCD from that installation of Vista
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#15
rshaffer61

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I agree and the big question is was there a issue that facilitated the installation on the second drive?
In my opinion if the C drive is loaded correctly and working then I would suggest deleting all partitions on the D drive and resetting them up. This way you will have the full capacity of the drive to use.
Is this feasible or is there something we need to consider first?
From your original post I am guessing the D drive should have nothing on it but the OS at this time.
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