Partition problem help please.?

Question

I installed partition magic to create another drive to install Linux. After created another drive i restarted the computer i did not see other drive but my hard drive capacity was 170 and now it is 80. I tried to do system recovery but i did not see my D drive either so it has been deleted. so i used the system recovery by CD and now my hard drive is 7 GB it is so weird. My question is how should i bring the 170 GB capacity back?and delete all other drives that i don't even see them? if anyone gives me an idea i would be appreciated.

thanks in advance

By the way.my pc is HP Pavilion a1020n Hardware
Base processor
Pentium4 519 (P) 3.06 GHz:

*
533 MHz Front side bus
*
Socket LGA775

Chipset
Intel 915GV
Motherboard

*
Manufacturer: Asus
*
Motherboard Name: PTGD-LA
*
HP motherboard name: Goldfish3-GL8E

Memory
Component Attributes
Memory Installed 512 MB (2 x 256)
Maximum allowed 4 GB* (4 x 1GB) requires the replacement of the installed 256 MB DIMMs

*Actual available memory may be less
Speed supported PC3200 MB/sec
Type 240 pin, DDR2 SDRAM
DIMM slots Four
Open DIMM slots Two
Hard drive

*
200 GB SATA

Answer 1

boot from CD delete all partitions and create 2 85gb Partitions. One as Linux and one as windows. Once that windows is installed and configured, install and configure linux. sorted!

Answer 2

Vista itself has a partition manager which does the job pretty well .Here are the instructions for it . First of all, you should know that after you used your computer with a single partition on its hard drive, the files will become fragmented, and you may not resize it properly, so before everything else, be sure to defragment your drive. Now, backup your data, "just in case", and let's start! * Click on the Start menu * Right click on My Computer and click on Manage * If you get a User Account Control dialog here, simply click Continue * In the left pane, choose the Storage category and open Disk Management. What you will find here are the partitions on your hard drive * Right click on the partition that you wish to change. * Choose Shrink Volume to shrink the selected partition * Enter the new size for the partition, and click Shrink * Now, you will notice that the partition is smaller, and some free space is available to create a new one; right click on the "free space" area. * Choose "New Simple Volume" from the menu that appears, then click Next. By default, Windows Vista will use all the free available space to create the new partition. Change the size if you need, or simply click Next if you agree with the default size. Now that your new partition is almost created, you have to baptize it, so choose a drive letter and click Next. At last, you should change the file system settings and format your new drive. In most cases, the NTFS file system using the default allocation unit size and a Quick Format should be fine. If you want a nick name for your new partition, baptize it again, using a suggestive name, such as "Documents", for example. Now, you new partition, will be also known as "Documents". Click Next...and you're done!

Answer 3

Format the hard drive. Upon reboot go into the BIOS and have the CMOS recognize the HDD and check to be sure it 'sees' the proper drive size. Then reload the system with your recovery disc's. ;-)=

Answer 4

1st go into computer management and see if you can see the missing drive space. right click on my computer and select "manage" then select "Disk Management"



If y ou can see it you may be able to manipulate it from here.



If you cant see it then i am afraid you may need to start from scratch. restore your PC using the HP restore disk or HP Restore partition (if it is still there) then try again.