[SOLVED] External HD is 250 but not showing it. How to recover space ?

[Sweet Spot]

This is weird. I'm using what used to be an internal HD that was set up as my bootable drive for a previous version of Ubuntu, as an external drive in an enclosure. I know that the HD has 250 gigs of space, but my MacBook Pro's disk utility app erased some of the partitions and think that it formatted it to FAT (just plain ol FAT) and now in either OS X or Kubuntu (which is what I"m using now) only see 157 usable gigs. However, I think that it still technically sees 97 gigs as being "used" but isn't accessible, if that makes sense ? Here's a screen shot to show what I mean:



My question is, how do I get this space back ? I'd like to reformat the entire disk if possible and have it be usable for OS X.

Doug

[devils casper]

Open Konsole and execute this :

sudo fdisk -l

Post output here.

You can create/delete/resize and format partitions through PartedMagic LiveCD easily.

[Sweet Spot]

Ok, here's the output:

Disk /dev/sda: 640.1 GB, 640135028736 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 77825 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x0009b467

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 * 1 77825 625129281 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 76854 77825 7807590 82 Linux swap / Solaris
/dev/sda6 1 2432 19534945+ 83 Linux
/dev/sda7 2433 76852 597778618+ 83 Linux

Partition table entries are not in disk order

Disk /dev/sdb: 163.9 GB, 163928604672 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 19929 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x00000000

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sdb1 1 19930 160086496+ af Unknown



The bold I believe represents the external drive. But I don't get it. All I see there is 163.9 GB. Where's the rest of that space ?

Doug

[devils casper]

It has rounded last cylinder ( 19929/19930 ) but thats normal. If you are sure that disk capacity is 250 GB then execute this

sudo hdparm -I /dev/sdb

Post output here.

In case it throws command not found error, execute this

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install hdparm

Above code will install hdparm.

[Sweet Spot]

Here's what I get. Should I still execute the second command you posted ?


/dev/sdb:
SG_IO: bad/missing ATA_16 sense data:: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
SG_IO: bad/missing ATA_16 sense data:: 70 00 05 00 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 00 20 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(identify) failed: Input/output error

[devils casper]

No need to execute apt-get command now.
Something is wrong with disk. Execute this

sudo mkdir /media/disk
sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/disk
ls /media/disk

Does last command display anything?

[Sweet Spot]

******@dbain:~$ sudo mkdir /media/disk
mkdir: cannot create directory `/media/disk': File exists
******@dbain:~$ sudo mount /dev/sdb1 /media/disk
mount: /dev/sdb1 already mounted or /media/disk busy
mount: according to mtab, /dev/sdb1 is mounted on /media/Untitled
*******@dbain:~$ ls /media/disk
********@dbain:~$

Nothing on last command. Wow, I'd never have thought that my HD would be messed up. Treated it very well and never dropped or anything. Also, if you look at my first screenshot, you'll see that there's 97 gigs just sitting in limbo. What's the story with that, do you think ?

doug

[Sweet Spot]

OMG ! Please totally disregard my post. I'm really really sorry. Here's what happened. I had two internal drives which were going into external enclosures, and I had put one into the closet for the future, and my wife (YES IT"S HER FAULT ) accidentally grabbed the wrong one when I asked her to hook it up. The two cases are totally different, but she misunderstood which one it was that she was getting.

I feel absolutely dumb right now. I was just confused because I see that it says 97 gb used and figured that this was lost data somehow.

Sorry again, and promise to not cry wolf in the future. I had to open up the enclosure just to make sure I wasn't going crazy.

Doug

[devils casper]

Its alright ! It happens sometimes !