Need help with laptop

[jiffy007]

I have an old Zeos Meridian 800 series laptop: 486DX4-100 processor, 20mb RAM, 540mb hard drive
The problem is, the system only recognizes 12mb of the hard drive, though when I check the BIOS, it reads the correct drive size. What's going on? And what can I do to fix it? I think my friend, whom I lent the laptop to, might have compressed the hard drive or something along those lines, but I'm not sure. Can anyone help? Thx

 

[Alphacowboy]

If you need nothing off the drive... FDISK! Delete all the partitions and reinstall them.... JUST REMEMBER YOU WILL LOSE EVERYTHING INCLUDING THE O/S!!!

 

[DaddyG]

FDISK will show you the existing partitions, maybe more than 1. Some laptops used a HDD partition to suspend main memory to.

 

[jiffy007]

I tried FDISK several times, and still nothing. This is what led me to believe the drive might be compressed. Or, I suppose it's possibility that the drive is just corrupted with bad sectors? Dunno...any other suggestions?