unformatting a hdd

ganonbanned · Post by **ganonbanned** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 10:43 pm

alright, so a friend of mine is selling me a 20 gig hd for $6. He says that it's really 20 gigs, but he bought it at the school rummage sale and it's formatted to 20. Is he lying? I didnt think that was possible. How can I un-format it? According to another friend it has something to do with xp drive management. Help is appreciated, thanks.

Bibin · Post by **Bibin** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:17 pm

...You just said he said "It's 20 gigabytes!", while the drive is really formatted at... 20 gigabytes. The issue here is what?

illustriouschin · Post by **illustriouschin** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:17 pm

why am i being sig quoted for? i dont even bring my A game to this forum...

ganonbanned · Post by **ganonbanned** » Fri Oct 26, 2007 11:33 pm

Bibin wrote:...You just said he said "It's 20 gigabytes!", while the drive is really formatted at... 20 gigabytes. The issue here is what?

Sorry about that, I meant to say it's supposed to be 20 gb's but its formatted so its 6 gig's.

and yeah, I quoted you because thats the direct truth, lol.

Kurt_ · Post by **Kurt_** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 6:02 am

Do you know about partitions?

Post by **Skyone** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 6:13 am

It's called reformatting or repartitioning.

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 8:20 am

Formatting and "unformatting" apply to the data inside partitions. Partitioning applies to manipulating partitions, which is what you want to do.

Plug the drive into your XP computer (make sure the jumper settings are right if it's IDE), and you can use the Disk Management console to format it. (Right-click My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management)

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 11:49 am

An unformatted drive of 20 gig would not yield about 6 gig after formatting. You would expect something like about 17-18 gig. If you are only getting 6 gig, the drive will be far lower capacity; unless the disk is partitioned; look in "My Computer" (in Windows), if it shows more than 1 drive letter for your hard disk, you may well have a partitioned disk.