Newbie, can you help me uninstall?

Me again. Grover, on the western digital site (trying to do some research myself) I see they have a download diagnostic to detect drives, give serial and model number and detect bad sectors. Do you think I should give it a try or would the acronis disk management trial be better? OR, should I do neither!?

 

do you have xp media centre installed?
Did you lose any data with the lost space?
do you have lots of important data, thats not backed up?

Have you tried putting in the win xp install cd, sometimes it will show any unformatted, unallocated disk space.

 

1. I would check your paperwork and see what length warranty your computer has so you know whether your hard drive is covered.

2. Yes, definitely download the diagnostic and run it on your drive. Watch the screens and make sure you choose the non-destructive tests.

 

Didn't get a whole lot of paperwork with the computer but will go on the dell site to my account and see if it's covered. If I were to do a reinstall then use the cd's I did a back up on, wouldn't it bring my system back to where the hard drive is missing space or would it just remember programs, data, settings, etc?
I do have media center, I did not lose any data when this happened. I have a total back up to cd at this point. If I put in the install cd it won't automatically assume I'm reformatting?
Gonna go download that drive diagnostic from WD and see if that tells me anything first.

 

no, if you use the xp install cd, you choose to install winxp, and it shows you all the partitions first, before it does anything.

the problem is, you have a dell machine, and usually they have their own setup cd's, almost like an acronis image, to restore back to when you purchased it.

If you cant get the missing space to show, using an xp install cd, or any disk software, and you have absolutely backed up all emails, docs, data, music etc that you need, I would honestly just use the dell recovery, then if the missing space returns, restore your acronis image.

 

To access a command prompt:

1. Click on the Run option and type COMMAND and press Enter key.

Or, as an alternative to the above, you can also open the start/programs/accessories folder and click on the Command prompt option.

Using either method, this should cause a half-size window to open and display a prompt--such as
c:\windows This is referred to as a Command prompt.

To exit a command prompt. Either type exit or press the X in upper right corner.

MudCrab (post #42) asked that you run this command below. Open a command prompt. Type or paste it exactly as you see it
chkdsk c: > c:\chkdskresults.txt (press enter key)

This will cause a file to be created on your C drive. The file name will be ChkDskResults.txt
You can located this file via Windows Explorer on Drive C.

Open the file in Notepad. Remove all the lines(297 lines) which read 1-99% completed. Leave the 3 lines which read 100% completed. Use Edit and Select All. The remains of the file will be highlighted. Click Edit & click Copy. This will copy the contents to the clipboard. You can then paste the text info into your posting. Or, use the forum attachment procedure and upload the entire file to your posting.

Your new DiskManagement picture continues to show the same space issue. The problem was not corrected by chkdsk. Hopefully, running the WD diagnostic will fix the problem. If not, then yes, I would go ahead and install the Acronis Disk Director 10 trial. I do not have the program and can offer no assistance. The other members will assist by telling you what options to run. Of course, the user manual can always help.

After editing the file, the contents should look similar to this sample below.
View attachment chkdsiresults.txt

 

Here is a screen shot of a quick test with the utility. I want to do a full test but takes several hours so may wait awhile on that.
I do have a dell reinstallation disk, not a windows xp (wish). So, not resorting to that until I've tried every other possible thing. I'm so afraid that even if I do that the space will still be missing afterwards. And, now that Acronis has kicked me in the butt, I'm not sure I trust that I'll be able to restore everything back with the cd's.
On my way to do the chkdsk with your instructions Grover, thanks...Will post after that and then probably try the full test before installing disk director trial. Be back shortly. Thanks for ALL of your help everyone.

 

oops, getting confused! FORGOT the dang screen prints!

 

After checking at the Western Digital support site, it appears your drive is out of warranty--unless your Dell warranty is still in effect.

I am not sure Acronis was the cause of your problem. The bad sectors may well have existed prior to Acronis. Whether your space can be recovered is yet to be determined--at this point in time.

When performing your recent True Image backups, did you do a full backup of all partitions (including diagnostic and media, etc) on your Disk or did you only perform a backup of Drive C partition only? Should you choose to restore your system to a new drive, this information will control some of the options possible. My backup guides illustrate a backup of all partitions as shown in B1-B4 images.

 

I think what we have here is a confused partition table.

DD10 would probably be able to solve this, but I've never used the trial version, so I'm not sure what its' restrictions are.

Is there anyway Andreah1 that you can borrow a harddrive just to make an image of your data and programs?

If in Windows Disk Management - this space is still showing as 'unallocated space' that means that the partition has had no formatting applied to it.

Now temporarily this means, that this space could be formatted, which would allocate a drive letter to it.

The other options are -

reformat the whole drive losing all your data in the process.

Try DD10 trial - it will definitely let you re-assign the space back to your existing partitions - I'm not sure if the "commit" option works - if it doesn't on reboot your back to where you are now.

Download one of the free partition managers such as Ranish - though these are not as easy to use, especially if you are uncertain of what you're playing with.

If agreeable format the empty partition and live with 3 drive letters on the one drive.

Formatting this partition or the drive for that matter would also update the bad sector table on the harddrive and subsequently in Windows - that is either the partition or whole drive format - though you'd want to do the whole drive format as a very last resort.

It could also be, that the drive itself has had an oopsy and the hardware bad sector table (burnt into the drive electronics at manufacture) has become addled - no cure for this but a new hard drive.

All these things would be less fraught if you can borrow a spare drive, image the two partitions that have the program files and data on them, and then be able to play about with your current drive with gay abandon.

Colin

 

andreah1,
What is the model number of your Dell machine and is it a desktop or laptop?
Did you created an Acronis True Image Rescue CD? If yes, have you use it?

bodgy,
The latest capture of her Disk management is post #50 below (page 2)
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=191391&page=2#50

Andrea's machine:
Dell, 2 yrs old, Model ?
Windows XP Media Center Edition
80G Sata Drive with supposedly bad sectors
GoBack installed but disabled after recent problems

 

Man, you guys are going above and beyond to help me and I so appreciate it. It took SIX hours to download the trial of DD, I played around a little. First I tried the recover partitions but even though I kept clicking on the drive it didn't show it was doing anything (I now know it was doing something but doesn't show until you close the program). Then I tried the Increase Free Space, it asks where you want to take the space from, I checked nothing as I really didn't want to take it from those other small partitions. I hit next and then it asked what partition size but the low and high end were exactly the same 69.82, the actual size that I used to have. So I left it at maximum and hit next. It said to review the hard disk drive structure, the c drive was checkmarked. I hit finish (it said I still had to commit before I hit finish). Then I x'ed out of the program, asks if I want to commit the pending operations, yes, then the big NO...this is a trial version, you have to purchase to commit. I'm attaching two screen prints...the second one looks like if I did use the program it would give me back my free space doesn't it? Would it be worth buying if it would?
Unfortunately, I know no one that has a ext. hard drive that I could borrow...actually out of my group of friends, sadly, I have the most computer knowledge. Oh boy, Grover, I have no idea what I did on the back up, why I didn't write it down is beyond me, it took twelve discs and the only thing I def. remember is checking full backup. I'm betting I only did the c drive because that's what I was worried about and only had about 15 discs on hand. SHOULD I create a rescue cd? I assumed because I have the program cd I could use that as a rescue but I haven't read the pages and pages of instructions I printed off the net. My model is an E310 desktop. I don't think it's under warranty anymore, think it was only a year.
If you guys think from looking at the screen shots that DD10 would solve my problem, should I try Ranish? Of course I'm sure I would need help with this. If it doesn't look like I can get my space back and I reformat, when I restore from the cd's, will it also restore my drive damaged like it is now? If so, why bother, you know?
Bodgy, I don't understand all you are saying but do "get" most of it, makes sense. I wouldn't care about having another drive letter but don't quite understand that, would that mean I would have to put some info on that drive and some on the c drive, it couldn't all be on one drive (and easy) anymore?
Ok, let me know what you think after the screen shots...I've become a pro at this (thanks Grover!).

 

Well DD is reporting that you do have the entire drive available - the 69 plus gigs in both the upper and lower window.

Disk management should have done the same but it doesn't. When I run disk management on mine, both upper and lower windows show the same amount. This is what is puzzling - the difference in the upper and lower window in yours.

 

Thinks it's worth buying DD or what? Maybe I should try Ranish (whatever that is). I'll wait for an unanimous (why can't I spell that?) decision.

 

I still would like to see the output from chkdsk. I want to see if it's reporting the correct partition size.

 

I have never used Ranish, so I can comment on that.

If you bought DD, you could boot to the DD CD and try to resize the Windows partition a little smaller. Apply the changes. Then resize it back to full size. This may fix the size "error" problem.

Another thing you need to do is to name your C: partition. Label it "WinXP" or "Windows" or something so you can tell for sure which is which when you're booted to the CD.

 

Totally forgot about doing chkdsk again, with the 6 hour download I got sidetracked. Will go do that now. You've got me confused on renaming drives, etc. I thought by what the screen prints looked like it seems like maybe it would just fix it easily. Will be back

 

Here you go, did a screen print since they are the easiest for me now! Let me know....It does say to do a chkdsk f again so I will do that while I'm waiting.

 

Okay, chkdsk is reporting the wrong partition size: 26,836,580 KB

See what it says after the chkdsk /f run.

 

I did it but the screen that looks like the one above flashed by VERY quickly, I couldn't read a thing on it, is there a way to save that one like the last one I did? I did a defrag as well and gobackio.bin won't defrag, it's 7 gigs. I disabled goback, could I delete these files or should I leave them alone for now.

 

I would uninstall GoBack altogether ... at least for the time being, until the missing space can be sorted out. And with True Image there will be no need for GoBack.

 

I pretty much agree and will uninstall it, do you think it will get rid of those gobackio.bin files or can I dump them? With true image I see that I won't really need it anymore but the utility that works like goback says you need to have a secure zone and that's what got me in trouble in the first place, now I don't have enough space to create one!

 

Do the uninstall the normal way first then you can delete any leftover files pertaining to GoBack.

Time to start serious budgeting for an external drive. Black Friday sales are coming up and I read that Office Depot will have a Seagate 500Gb external for $100 starting tomorrow, Sunday (no rebates). And Staples will have a Maxtor 500Gb external for $79.98 after a rebate ($40), on Black Friday.

You do not have to have a Secure Zone to use True Image.

 

WIll do on the install. Trust me, I WANT to buy an ext. drive but right now it's almost impossible...50 bucks right now is even very hard to come up with. I see staples is gonna have a 120 gb on day after tday but gotta work so only way I can get it is to hope it's on their website.
I must have been reading wrong about acronis, I thought it said if you want to use startup recovery manager (I assume is like goback and system restore) you have to have a secure zone first.

 

buy.com has a reconditioned fantom 160gb and it would be 53.00 with google checkout...7200 rpm?