Hard drive capacity incorrect

hughvane · hughvane #1 (**permalink**)

09-03-2011, 09:58 PM

Fellow hoarders of old Macs and their various components, please advise. I have very reluctantly, tears flowing

, partially dismantled my old G3 350 b/w with its dual drives in preparation for recycling.

I'm in the process of reformatting one of the drives, an 80 Gb Seagate with Panther on it, to MacOS Extended for storage purposes only. Initially the Seagate wouldn't mount to my eMac, then I noticed it had no jumpers. Remedied that, with a jumper from the rear of a Zip drive, imitating the configuration of two other spare ATA drives that do mount successfully, ie. pin sets 1 and 4. The Seagate drive then mounted.

After erasing the Seagate, Disk Utility stated its capacity as 31.5 Gb. I then zeroed all free space on the drive, but still just the 31.5 reading.

What might I be doing wrong? Are the jumpers on the wrong pins (for the Seagate) perhaps, and is the OS reading the disk as partitioned?

Update: tried partitioning the Seagate using 1 partition. No joy, capacity still as shown in the attachment.

chscag · chscag #2 (**permalink**)

09-04-2011, 12:00 AM

Did you use Disk Utility to zero out the free space on the drive? If you did, Disk Utility not only zeros it out but also removes the space from the mix.

Not sure how to recover the zeroed out space, but try erasing the drive once more and apply a format to it.

hughvane · hughvane #3 (**permalink**)

09-05-2011, 09:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chscag

Did you use Disk Utility to zero out the free space ... try erasing the drive once more and apply a format to it.

Yes, I used DU and then tried erasing again.

But that was not the problem. It was the jumpers, incorrectly set. In fact, there should have been just the one jumper. Sometimes it pays to read the instructions

Thanks very much for your help ...... Hugh

JohnCL · JohnCL #4 (**permalink**)

09-05-2011, 09:39 PM

You don't have pins 1&2 jumpered (Closest to power connector) do you? If so, try jumpering pins 7&8

hughvane · hughvane #5 (**permalink**)

09-05-2011, 09:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JohnCL

You don't have pins 1&2 jumpered (Closest to power connector) do you?

I did, and had both 1-2 and 7-8 jumpered. I learned from reading the label

that doing so limited the readable capacity to 32 Gb!!

Quote:

If so, try jumpering pins 7&8

The one jumper is now vertical on pins 7-8, and everything is working a-i-s.

In my own defence, the Seagate label is reversed in its placement when looking at the jumper pins, and I shall blame that for the snafu.

Thanks ..... Hugh

pigoo3 · pigoo3 #6 (**permalink**)

09-05-2011, 10:31 PM

Hugh,

Do I understand correctly that after reformatting this drive...it's only reporting 31.5gig for an 80gig drive?

If so, this certainly smells of a 2nd partition somewhere that needs to be eliminated.

- Nick

hughvane · hughvane #7 (**permalink**)

09-06-2011, 01:23 AM

No Nick, see Post #6. The drive is definitely back to 80 Gb, formatted and ready to go. Thanks ..... Hugh

chscag #2 (permalink)
Member Since: Jan 23, 2008 Location: Fort Worth, Texas Posts: 31,968 Mac Specs: 21.5" iMac 2.5 GHz i5, iPad 3rd Gen., 3 iPods	09-04-2011, 12:00 AM Did you use Disk Utility to zero out the free space on the drive? If you did, Disk Utility not only zeros it out but also removes the space from the mix. Not sure how to recover the zeroed out space, but try erasing the drive once more and apply a format to it. Community Guidelines
	QUOTE Thanks

JohnCL #4 (permalink)
Member Since: Jan 29, 2009 Location: Kansas City Posts: 1,018 Mac Specs: -->	09-05-2011, 09:39 PM You don't have pins 1&2 jumpered (Closest to power connector) do you? If so, try jumpering pins 7&8 15" 2.4GHz i5 256gb SSD MacBook Pro \| Dual Drive 2.3GHz i5 Mac mini w/SSD \| 11" 1.7GHz i5 64gb MacBook Air \| Dual 2.0GHz PowerMac G5 \| 24" ACD \| 16GB Verizon iPhone 5 \| iPad 32GB Verizon LTE \| iPad mini 16GB \| TV1 \| TV3
	QUOTE Thanks

pigoo3 #6 (permalink)
Member Since: May 20, 2008 Location: U.S. Posts: 20,286 Mac Specs: 13" MB 2.4ghz, 2gig ram, OS 10.7.4	09-05-2011, 10:31 PM Hugh, Do I understand correctly that after reformatting this drive...it's only reporting 31.5gig for an 80gig drive? If so, this certainly smells of a 2nd partition somewhere that needs to be eliminated. - Nick - Computer slow, too many "beachballs", read this: Beachballs - Computer seems slower than it used to? Read this for some speedup tips: Speedup - Almost full hard drive? Some solutions. Out of Space - Apple Battery Info. Battery
	QUOTE Thanks

hughvane #7 (permalink)
Member Since: May 18, 2008 Location: Banks Peninsula, New Zealand Posts: 3,244 Mac Specs: MacMini 2.4, 4 Gb, OS 10.6.8; MacBook 2.4, 2 Gb, OS 10.5.8; G4 eMac 1.25, 2 Gb, OS 10.4.11	09-06-2011, 01:23 AM No Nick, see Post #6. The drive is definitely back to 80 Gb, formatted and ready to go. Thanks ..... Hugh ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Please post your Mac (or other) specs and MacOS version in your post, your profile or your signature. It helps us to help you better. I'm leaving now to go and find myself. If I should return before I get back, please ask me to wait.
	QUOTE Thanks

Similar Threads
Thread	Thread Starter	Forum	Replies	Last Post
Another MacBook Hard Drive Replacement Experience	caribiner23	Apple Notebooks	29	11-24-2011 12:16 AM
Help Required - installation of OSX on External Hard Drive	nikkymat	OS X - Operating System	3	03-13-2010 08:18 AM
Hard drive upgrade querry!	ruddypilgrim	Apple Notebooks	4	01-25-2009 04:03 PM
Erased hard drive not showing full capacity	Bussta	OS X - Operating System	2	02-28-2008 09:00 AM

Hard drive capacity incorrect

Internet Services

Web Development

Digital Marketing

Consumer Tech

Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread: 1 (0 members and 1 guests)