Hard drive space missing

[zigzag03]

i have a samsumg HD403LJ as my primary drive in an XP installation. at 400 gig total, i had it partitioned into C: and D: and i had, i think, split it approx 250g/150g respectively. I managed to badly corrupt my windows install, and now it seems, as i try to restore or rebuild or even wipe clean and start over, that the drive is showing up as 131k mb, or less even than my smaller partition was, if my memory serves. also, when trying to repair what i had, it would not find a current windows install to repair, as if the partition no longer existed. the windows installation cd shows this small partition as the only place to do a fresh install.
partition magic shows the same 130gb(?) partition, and a second unallocated one of about 15gb.
what do you suppose has happened to more than half of this drive? thanks zz03

 

[Slugbait]

Lack of info makes this more of a guessing game.

Your memory sounds like jello-shots...but close enough to the target. You've apparently hit the 137G barrier. Extremely common for those who have an XP Gold disc. Either use an SP1 or SP2 disc, or slipstream the service pack and use that disc to rebuild.

Another option is to install Windows, use the disk size it can see, then install the service pack to access the rest of the drive. Please note: install the service pack BEFORE you connect to the Internet. Otherwise, you will be fully compromised long before WGA finishes installing, much less begin downloading anything else from Windows Update.

 

[zigzag03]

jello shots... now THAT i can remember! i'll try this, and thank you. zz03