Score:1

Ubuntu

Unallocated space missing

Pierre Raynard

2/26/23, 6:26 PM

I have a 1tb SATA HD that was formerly partitioned for my Ubuntu home directory. When I mount it as an external drive and to try and reformat it, it shows up as 31.8mb of space, with no other unallocated space or partitions. I have tried reformatting in multiple ways, using both gparted in Ubuntu, and Disk Utility on a Mac. Is there a way to recover the actual disc space, or is this a hardware issue?

The output of fdisk -l for this drive is as follows:

Disk /dev/sdb: 31.8 MiB, 33348608 bytes, 65134 sectors
Units: sectors of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
Sector size (logical/physical): 512 bytes / 4096 bytes
I/O size (minimum/optimal): 4096 bytes / 4096 bytes
Disklabel type: dos
Disk identifier: 0x20d63258

100

0 + 0

partitioning

gparted

hard-drive

Mark Kirby

2/26/23, 7:09 PM

Mount the drive in Ubuntu and then run `sudo fdisk -l` to get some information on the drive and partitions, that add the out put to your question, please.

Pierre Raynard

2/26/23, 7:46 PM

Thanks Mark, done.

vanadium

2/26/23, 8:46 PM

There are no partitions there (anymore?). You may first n

Pierre Raynard

2/26/23, 8:49 PM

Yes, but only because I deleted the partition. I can add partitions, but only within the 31.8mb area, no errors or issues.

matigo

2/26/23, 10:23 PM

Is that a spinning disk or an SSD? Is this an internal disk that has been installed in an external caddy?

Pierre Raynard

2/26/23, 10:59 PM

It's a spinning disk on an external caddy. It was formerly an internal disk with my home directory on it, which I would now like to use for storage.

Soren A

2/27/23, 8:25 AM

According to `fdisk` /dev/sdb is not a 1 TB disk but a 32 MB one. Check with `fsiak -l` if otger disk devices with correct 1 TB size is available ... you can ignore the loop devices.

Score:0

Ubuntu

vanadium

2/26/23, 8:52 PM

It appears as if that drive has no partitions. You will need to create one or multiple partitions first, then these can be formatted with a file system.

The tool Disk in standard Ubuntu can be used for that.

In the left pane, select the drive
From the menu (︙) select format disk: this will fully initialize the disk, i.e., create a new partition table. You can select the traditional MBR/DOS format, or the modern GPT system.
Now you can use the "+" icon below the map on the right to create a partition
After selecting the created partition in the map, you can use the cog icon to format the created partition.

0 + 0

Pierre Raynard

2/26/23, 9:03 PM

Hello Vandam, unfortunately that just creates partitions within the 31.8 mb range, rather than recovering the missing unallocated space (this is a 1tb drive).

walttheboss

2/26/23, 11:13 PM

You need to specify more how you are connecting the drive. My guess is your caddy/cable is faulty. Using Disk or Gparted if you can install it will work. You need to first delete all existing partitions. Then create a new partition table. This is NOT the same as adding a partition. After that try to add a partition.

Pierre Raynard

2/27/23, 4:51 PM

Thanks @walttheboss. I think you may be right about the caddy, it works with my other HDs, but it may be too low powered. I have created both gpt and msdos partition tables, with no results.

Elon Musk

I sit in a Tesla and translated this thread with Ai:

EN: Unallocated space missing

TH: ไม่มีการจัดสรรพื้นที่ว่าง

RO: Lipsește spațiu nealocat

RU: Нераспределенное пространство отсутствует

VI: Thiếu dung lượng chưa phân bổ

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