Re: Large unusable area on NTFS volume

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Kerry, I think I am far past the ppint of diminishing returns. The fact of
the matter is that I have put far more time into solving this than I would
have put into simply formatting and reinstalling everything. However - that
said - it's become a technical challenge for me in that I am hoping to
discover a way to solve this problem without using brute force. Since I'm an
engineer, I kind of like "elegant" solutions, and If I can find a way to
solve this, it may help others as well. One should not really have to format
an HD just because of a MB/chipset change.


"Kerry Brown" wrote:

> "Shfwilf" <Shfwilf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:7077BBEF-8B36-432F-9CCA-88E2CD9B1F47@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> > The problem is this instance is that XP has marked out about half of a 250
> > GB
> > drive as either "bad sectors" or "system files", depending on which
> > utility
> > is looking at it. This area cannot be accessed nor used presently.
> >
> > In fact, I have verified that this area of the drive is NOT bad, and the
> > drive has no physical damage whatever, by ghosting the current XP install
> > to
> > another drive, formatting the drive, and running extensive diagnostics on
> > it.
> > The drive is formatted as NTFS. This situation arose after a motherboard
> > change (different chipset) and immediate repair install of XP as suggested
> > by
> > many sources.
> >
> > I have, so far:
> >
> > 1. Attempted the usual repairs by booting from the XP CD and using the
> > recovery console.
> >
> > 2. Attempted to use a fairly complex Linux procedure as described at
> > http://www.bodden.de - this failed.
> >
> > 3. Attempted to convert the volume to FAT32 with Partition Magic so that I
> > could perform a bad sector retest. The volume will not convert.
> >
> > 4. Searched Google for months in hope of a solution without success. :(
> >
> > 5. Confirmed that the BIOS recognizes the drive at it's full size.
> >
> > 6. Confirmed that the Nvidia chipset drivers are in place and working.
> >
> > 7. Confirmed that the IDE controllers are working properly.
> >
> > 8. Used Partition Magic in "DOS" mode to try to rectify the problem in
> > various ways without success.
> >
> > I have concluded that this is not a hardware problem and have verified
> > this
> > repeatedly (unless I have missed something!).
> >
> > I can, of course, fix this by formatting the drive and reinstalling all
> > applications. I would prefer not to do this, mainly because I'm a bit
> > stubborn and I want to find a more elegant solution to the problem.
> >
> > The drive works perfectly, but I have a lot of unusable space as of now -
> > not good.
> >
> > Thanks in advance for any and all help !
>
> You are reaching the point of diminishing returns. I have seen this question
> recently posted at least once before, presumably by you. At this point my
> recommendation would be a full backup with ntbackup then format the drive,
> reinstall Windows, and restore your backup. It's a pain but how much time
> have you already spent on this? Sometimes there is no "elegant" solution. Of
> course some people would consider using the built in Windows utilities to
> fix a Windows problem "elegant" :-)
>
>
> Kerry
>
>
>
.

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