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My hard drive size is 19GB not very big but it gets me around. but now it says its capacity is 10GB i have no idea why. :confused: .there's another thing too the windows sccreen that usually comes up when your starting your computer, is gone. All it says is "Windows Is Loading" Whats going on with my computer? is it a virus?
What version of windows? If it's 9x/ME then there's an option to show the boot logo, forget what file it's in but I think it might be msdos.sys.. As for the capacity of your hard drive, what have you installed lately? Did the size of the hard drive change or did the free space change? little more info would help, if it's the size then maybe you've been downloading a lot and just never noticed? If it's the physical size then it sounds like a partition problem or something, is this a home computer or is it at work? Do other people use your computer? I've split my hard drive with partition magic and dual booted 2 OS's at the same time so maybe someone's doing that, again, more info would help
Its windows i'm running. but i also run linux?! would that split the hard drive like that? as for the start up screen. the file i think is called logo.sys in the c drive. but i can't find it. other people use my computer at home but there not people that know enough about computers to do anything. but maybe it is linux. do you think?
so... err... stupid question maybe but, have you recently installed linux?? To answer your question - yes it is possible (and until we have some useful information, I think probable) that linux is taking up the remaining 9GB of your HD. What do you think linux put it's files on - fresh air???
When you installled linux - did you ask for a linux partition to be made - how big?
What have you done to your PC recently (and don't say nothing because you obviously have)? Go back to the last thing you did to it before you think the HD size changed as reported in windows.... what was it?
First calm down.... no need to panic just yet.... :)
Z
What happened is you partitioned (whether you know it or not) your Hard drive when you installed linux. Most linux distros by default resize your windows partition and auto allocate about half for linux and half for windows. Windows won't see that file system so it is only reporting what you allocated to windows from Linux you should be able to see both. Now the boot logo may just be because you have LILO or GRUB in your MBR (Master Boot Record ) instead of the Windows boot loader. No worries there is nothing wrong here. Welcome to the Linux world it is a bumpy ride to get everything to work properly but once it works it does exactly that "Just works".
You might try going into "setup" when you boot your machine, and check how big the BIOS thinks yor hard drive is. BIOS does not care about how many partitions you have, if they are NTFS, FAT32 or whatever, or what OS you boot out of them.
Older machines may have a BIOS version that does not recognise a larger drive, 8.445Gb seems familiar, but I cannot remember the other "watersheds" off the top of my head.
Have you or one of the others run any of this fancy tweaking software recently? for example enabling DMA or whatever?
I have seen problems where an upgraded hard drive was put in a machine whose BIOS did not support it. The drive manufacturer provided a utility that loaded at startup and overode the BIOS (EZdrive I think). Somehow this got disabled, and the machine reverted to thinking it had an 8.445Gb drive :confused:
You do not say what file systems your partitions use, or what version of Windows you have....this may be a clue?
Hope this helps
inf0streaker, the logo.sys holds the logo itself... in msdos.sys is where the option to show the logo or not is held.
As for the linux part, did you install linux? The ?! doesn't clear up if you put linux on there or if you think we're telling you that linux is there.. But yes if you put linux on the computer it needs disk space just like windows.
i installed linux about a mounth ago. and the internet on it didn't work so i just ignored it for a while. But in the bios it says the capacity is only 10GB. and in windows it says the capacity is 11GB. When i installed i partitioned it too about 15%-20% not sure how much it is in MB.
And i'm not paniced. it might sound like i am but i'm not.
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First, Let me just say I laughed my ass off to that comment.
On a more serious note. Linux does use harddisk space, and you might not have noticed when you installed linux, but it does use existing free space for it's own partition. Hence, it only show's 10gig capacity on your windows partition. In linux, you can always view the partition information in the info center.
When you use lilo or grub, it's not the same boot manager as windows, so you may not see the same boot screen as windows. I hope that answers your question somewhat intelligently.
--PuRe www.pureescape.net <<~~Your not there yet, what the hell am I paying you for?
I've had a similar problem after I've failed installing Linux RedHat 6.1 toghether with Windows 95 on my box. After that my computer detected the hard drive only if the jumper was set to CS (cable select) and it show only half of it. So, for example, instead of 2048 cylinders, it showed only 1024. I low level formatted the hard-drive and so I fixed the problem.
What version of Windows are you running? The other guys are quite right in that it probably cannot detect the Linux partition, but if you gave it around 20%, Windows should still see about 15Gb.
This takes me back to the BIOS.......is the 19Gb drive the original one, or has the machine been upgraded? You might like to run setup and ask the BIOS to redetect your hard drive. If it stays the same size, then I suspect the BIOS does not support your hard drive capacity, and there was some program that ran at post that compensated for this.
When you installed Linux, you changed your startup instructions and probably deleted the call to this program. You will probably have to open the box and get the hard drive details, then go to the manufacturers website and download their toolkit to sort this problem.
I still maintain that the BIOS should get the total physical drive size correct. Mine do, even before I load an operating system, so that should not be an issue. What is the make and model of your machine, and what are its specs?
I have seen something like this in the opposite direction, where the BIOS saw two physical drives of 8.445Gb and Windows (98Se) saw one drive of 60 Gb. I re-installed the BIOS override program and Windows saw 1x60Gb and 1x12Gb, which was correct. On setup, however the BIOS still reports 2x8.445Gb drives :confused: BUT IT WORKS :p
At this stage I am fairly confident that this is not a malware problem, and that Linux is only to blame insofar as its installation upset a rather delicate posting sequence.
You might like to try your computer/motherboard manufacturers site to see if there is an updated BIOS version available?
Good Luck
i deleted the linux partition linux is gone and every thing is back to normal. Linux was just a pain to me anyways. i didn't know enough about it. and thanks to most people for helping me. and i'll get linux on my next computer i'm getting in september.
Dont give up on Linux so soon...Its great once you get it to work. Like one of them says, it just works. U dont have to worry about stuff crashing your system. Anywy, good luck when your next system comes along with linux. Maybe you might want to have a look at some of the information out there about linux. If you need any help looking for linux info PM me and I'll send you some links to have a look at. there will be lots of people here who'd help you out if you have any problems or want to know anything about linux. Just try to read some of the stuff for yourself and you be fine. Knowledge is power.