Low data space on hard drive.

[Ghost2]

I have a circa 1998 computer with all of its original hardware (Save the mouse, keyboard, and ethernet card) and its slowly decaying (the cd writer died a while ago). At least 3 times we've had to reformat the hard drive due to viruses, corruption, and general failure. The most recent format, however, left alot of space behind. The hard drive used to have a capacity of around 15 gb, but it now claims to have a total capacity of around 6.03 gb. How (if possible) could I fix this? Preferably in a manner that doesn't involve reinstalling everything especially since the remaining cd-rom drive could die any day now. Thanks.

[Besty]

I had a program a wee while back that claimed to be able to completely wipe a hd so that nothing was left maby something like that cud hlp

[paulcoup]

After the reformat, did it say if there were any bad sectors?

Were you using DOS to format the HDD? If so, did you use a different version then from a previous format?

If you are using DOS, (and an early Windows version), try running fdisk to see if there are any partions on the HDD that are unused.

[Scarecrow Man]

You may need to format again... Run a scandisk to ensure there is no bad sectors, but then boot from a windows 98/me bootdisk (or get one from bootdisk.com) and run fdisk. Make sure there is no unpartitioned space. I don't know why this would happen, but worth a look. You will have to delete and remake the partition to get it back, thus losing your data.