It's not unheard of for a drive to be marked as 20gb when they are actually 10. Or, that something has happened to the partition information on that drive. What concerns me is that the above information shown physically shows 17475 Cylinders, which would be equivalent to 10gb.

As you maybe aware, whenever dealing with, recreating or resizing partitions, it means losing your data on that drive. The only software that can resize a partition without losing data is Acronis. Since you have no unallocated space to resize a partition, we don't even have that option.

If I was personally in your situation, I would purchase a new 40gb drive, as they are cheap enough these days, and install your fresh OS on that drive (or use it as a secondary drive). This way you won't lose any data, any you can copy/move any information from those drives as and when.

I have a procedure that may fix your problem (if it's the partition info), it's drastic, but it's a trick I picked up from another forum. It has worked for me when dealing with partition problems in the past, and hopefully it will work for you too. You have a floppy drive and spare floppy disk you can use right?

yes, I do

Na, that page you supplied, we have already happily ruled out all 4 of the possible causes listed there.

OK, before you start this procedure, make sure that you have backed up all of your data. The procedure below will erase all the partition information on those drives.

- Download a Windows 98 SE Custom Bootdisk from here: Bootdisk.Com - Free Windows Bootdisks, Free DOS boot disk
- Start the setup program, which will install the startup files onto your floppy disk.
- Start your PC with the startup disk in the drive.
- At the command prompt, you'll need to do the following:
debug <enter>
-F 200 L1000 0 <enter>
-A CS:100 <enter>
xxxx:0100 MOV AX,301 <enter>
xxxx:0103 MOV BX,200 <enter>
xxxx:0106 MOV CX,1 <enter>
xxxx:0109 MOV DX,80 <enter>

(80 for hd 0 or 81 for hd 1 )

xxxx:010C INT 13 <enter>
xxxx:010E INT 20 <enter>
xxxx:0110 <enter>
-g <enter>
Program terminated normally
-q<enter>

- ^ Repeat the process for each disk you want to work with.
- If your working with your first disk (0), then restart your PC, and use your Windows XP setup CD to install Windows as you have probably done so in the past. During the setup procedure, you'll be asked to C=Create a new partition - make sure it's set to the maximum size available.
- If your working with your second disk (1), then restart your PC and bootup normally. Go back to Computer Management, and see if you can see your full 20gb listed as "Unallocated".

Alright, I'll give it a try

Yikes.. my floppy drive is rally acting up.

Actually... this PC is just going to be used for instant messaging and document editing, so 15 or so GB is probably more than needed already.

I think I'll just leave it at that.

Thanks a million

No prob's xavier, the options there if you decide to try it at a later date. Marked as Answered.