Unlock extra sectors from your hardrive.

[pimmp]

Hey guys, I have an old Dell 4500 desktop with an IDE 80gig hard dive in it. A few years ago I learned how to unlock the sector limitations drive manufactures put on them. I got my 80 gig partition plus an extra 40 gig partition thus making it a total 120gigs but I cant merge the two but that's OK. I remember using Norton Ghost but that's about it. I think it was to trick Norton Ghost into making a drive image then when it reboots to format the hard drive to see the two partitions 1 new 1 old. Does anyone remember how this can be done? I searched around and found nothing. The reason I ask is because I want to see if this works on ATA Hard Drives and redo some old IDE Drives laying around.

Thanks for any help or advise.

[tehboris]

Merging file systems?

Can't you just copy the files from one to the other. Dealing with any 'colisions' as you go?

[pimmp]

My Dell 4500 is running XP Pro sp3 and I have it installed on my main partition (c:/) then I also have a "new 40gig" secondary partition (D:/) to save any extra files.

[nav13eh]

Hey guys, I have an old Dell 4500 desktop with an IDE 80gig hard dive in it. A few years ago I learned how to unlock the sector limitations drive manufactures put on them. I got my 80 gig partition plus an extra 40 gig partition thus making it a total 120gigs but I cant merge the two but that's OK. I remember using Norton Ghost but that's about it. I think it was to trick Norton Ghost into making a drive image then when it reboots to format the hard drive to see the two partitions 1 new 1 old. Does anyone remember how this can be done? I searched around and found nothing. The reason I ask is because I want to see if this works on ATA Hard Drives and redo some old IDE Drives laying around.

Thanks for any help or advise.

Do you have a link to how you did this, I'm curious to see how you did.:)

[tokenuser]

Do you have a link to how you did this, I'm curious to see how you did.:)I'm betting he deleted the restore partition on the hard drive. Not really "unlocking" just activating through the storage manager so that you have control over it.

[computoman]

I agree or some kind of file compression was done.

[tokenuser]

I agree or some kind of file compression was done.No - definately a restore partition. Dell and HP/Compaq don't supply media with their machines, but have the discs loaded in a restore area of the HDD. They often supply a utility that allows you to burn the media to disc, or at least create a recovery/restore disc, and often give you the ability to remove the restore partition and use it as disc space.

Being the type of people that we are, the minute a geek formats and reloads the OS using a generic disc so they dont get the crapware loaded on those machines by default, we lose the "burn your media" and "recover the filespace" options that was on there by default.

You have to know to go looking for it ... but I have to say, having the media in that partition saved my bacon on a road trip once, so its not always a bad thing.

[computoman]

Sony does the same thing also with the hidden partition. Another good reason to image the drive on a new system as soon as you get it home. I always keep a live linux cd with me for emergencies on other peoples mswindows boxes.

[pimmp]

Wow some of you got the wrong idea. OK first off I'm not some new geek that's getting over excited off Hard drive space. lol Actually I've been servicing and building costume computers for over 10 years. When I originally said that it was an old dell 4500 I should have been a little more specific. This dell computer has Two hard drives in it from other junk computers. I have one 40 gig and one 80 gig. I went clean install with XP Pro and fully partitioned the hard drives. There's no recovery partition or any of that BS. I have Xp Pro installed on the 40 gig drive and use my 80 gig as network storage. Now on top off that 80 gig partition I also have an extra 40 gigs unpartitioned. Now trust me when I say the drive came from dell more then 8 as a 80 gig, back when DVD burners were just released through dell. It has always been just an 80 gig until I found this trick to access the extra sectors on the drive.

In the picture I attached it shows my drive management. The reason I don't have that extra 40 gigs partitioned is because its not stable. I would always loose files and some times the partition will disappear. I think this is an old trick and many people don't know about anymore.

Let me also apologize because before I messed up on explaining how XP was installed. "My Dell 4500 is running XP Pro sp3 and I have it installed on my main partition (c:/) then I also have a "new 40gig" secondary partition (D:/) to save any extra files." Xp is installed on the main 40 but i have the extra hard drive in that is an 80 gig but unlocked to be 120 gig.

[pimmp]

I'm sorry that pic is too small. I don't know how to upload here but i have a TinyPic URL.
http://i36.tinypic.com/5dnwnm.jpg

[tehboris]

Why is it on an extended partition?

Was there a question that was asked in relation to this?

Also, can you take a picture of the label on the hard disk please?

I know cheap memory stick manufacturers do some nasty things to make production cheaper and ultimately sell the same product regardless of size. Not sure a hard disk manufacturer would do this on the basis that hard disks are hard to manufacturer (reliably) with higher aerial densities.

Ultimately, the only way you would know that all your disk is been utilised would be to tell the drive to write to the end of the hard disk and see if it physically is at the end of the platter.

[tokenuser]

Wow some of you got the wrong idea. OK first off I'm not some new geek that's getting over excited off Hard drive space.You gave details that were so vague that it is hard to determine what your level of experience is. Partitions and harddrives are different. You know that, but sometimes precision in what you are explaining makes the difference between appearing like a noob and appearing like you know what you are talking about.

I have formated (low level) drives in the past and varied the number of bytes in a sector. On drives with lots of small files, that can make a difference ... but have no idea how you unlocked an extra 50% of hard drive capacity.

Care to share?

BTW - If a drive is unreliable and files go missing ... you might as well NOT have it. Not even as a scratch disc.

[nav13eh]

Sometimes dives come with hidden space for sys restore, like everybody already said.

[computoman]

Most all drives have unused space so that if some sectors go bad they can be replaced with good sectors by using a hd low level tool. In the old days you actually had to do the low level format first, partition the drive and then do the high level format. Technically it is still done but the makers of drives no longer let the users do the low level format from the bios.You have to use the vendor based software instead.