Samsung HD - 120GB - Lost Capacity

[pcholic]

Hi guys

HP Laptop Pavilion 2135LA
2GB Ram
Core 2 Duo 1.6


HD: ATA Device Samsung HM120JI -
S09GJ20L870704 ON Intel ICH7
MAX NATIVE ADDRESS 234441647
120GB


I wanted to repartition it (ATA Device Samsung HM120JI) to install it a linux OS. I partitioned it in 100G NTFS and 20G ext3 with a Partition Magic 8. Then I decided to free space to the NTFS partition to give it some more to the recovery partition HP installs on each laptop has around 1.5G. Then I used a Bootable Active Partitioner and did exactly what I mentioned before. I resized the 100G partition to 85G. Then I created with the rest of 15G a new partition. I didn’t format it but after creation it turned in to a FAT32 by itself, the n I tried to deleted and it didn´t . Then I decided to deleted the 85G NTFS in order to make it both just one again. The Active Partitioner didn’t read the HD again. I tried to boot it with partition magic 8 again but it says there was no installed HD. I checked it with Win98SE’s Fdisk and it only showed the ext3 partition, I mean, there was 85G lost. I reinstalled the whole system with an Original HP’s manufactures CD. When it was done I could tell the HD was only 115G. I mean, even though it recovered that lost partition, 5.5G were still lost. Later I decided to reinstall a winxp-pro corporative in stead of the Hp’s original. When done I booted again with partition magic and showed the following:

NTFS: 114.463.1MB
Used: 604.5 MB
Unused: 113.858.6 MB
Unallocated: 7.8MB


I’m not sure if those 7.8MB belong to the 114.4 or are the remaining part of 120GB.

I also short tested it with Bootable SeaTools for DOS V2.07PG and it passed.

My other questions are the following :

Can I get those 5.5G back again with HDD Capacity Restore Tool?
How can I do it with just a single HD ?
I read above that it’s possible to remove it and attach it to a des top . Can I do this ? How ?

Could you please have in mind the laptop’s HD is a "s-ata one" and additionally I have two “s-ata ports” in my desktop´s main board and also, 1 “IDE port”.


Regards
pcholic

[fzabkar]

If the drive is still reporting "MAX NATIVE ADDRESS 234441647", then that is its full factory capacity:

(234441647 + 1) x 512 bytes per sector = 120 034 123 776 bytes

See this article for an explanation of the difference between gigabytes and gibibytes:
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?l ... 04090aRCRD

BTW, the 7.8MB of unallocated space may be due to the fact that your partitions end on a cylinder boundary. This means that the last partial cylinder will not be used.

A full cylinder has a capacity of 255 x 63 x 512 = 8 225 280 bytes.

[pcholic]

fzabkar,

This is a wonderful answer, and you are completely right. I multiplied and its results equals the HD's manufacture size. I really appreciate it.

This is solved.

Regards
Pcholic