Fixes for External Hard Drive Showing Incorrect Capacity

Updated by

Linda 

Written by

Linda 

Updated on April 19, 2024

5+ Effective Solutions for Hard Drive Displaying Incorrect Capacity

It's quite common to encounter similar issues with storage media, like an SD card showing the wrong size or USB drives displaying incorrect capacity. If you're one of those affected by the hard drive displaying incorrect capacity, you can address the problem using these effective solutions. Keep reading; the content below will answer all your questions.

Please provide the list of languages you need translated, I'll do my best to assist you with English translations.

Hard Drive Displaying Incorrect Capacity

What's shown below is a real-life scenario of a user telling his 1TB hard drive, displaying only 0.18TB of free space.

"I'm having a strange issue with my WD external hard drive. It's advertised as a 1TB drive, and I use it exclusively for backup. But, I just found out that the available free space is only 0.18TB. That doesn't make sense because my used space shouldn't be over 200GB. What could have caused this discrepancy? Why is the hard drive showing incorrect free space? Can I somehow restore its full capacity? If so, how would I go about doing that?"

A newly purchased 500 GB HDD might only show 465 GB even when it's empty. Some external hard drives and USB flash drives may exhibit another capacity issue where the available free space significantly diminishes. Does this indicate a corrupted hard drive? Not necessarily. There are several reasons why a hard drive might display less space than its actual capacity.

Why Does My Hard Drive Show Less Space Available?

Aside from purchasing a fake hard drive from an unscrupulous seller, there are several reasons why Windows might display an incorrect amount of available storage. These include hidden files, formatting overhead, virus infections, recovery partition usage, hard drive issues, and more. To further assist you in understanding why your (external) hard drive might be showing the wrong capacity or free space, we've listed some additional common causes.

Here are the translations for the given languages into English: 1. The hard drive driver is out of date. In this case, the hard drive might display the incorrect capacity on a Windows computer. 2. The hard drive has been formatted using an inappropriate tool, or the formatting process was not completed properly. 3. The hard drive has been initialized with the wrong partition table. If it is larger than 2TB but initialized as MBR, the space beyond 2TB will appear as "Unallocated" in Disk Management, and you won't see it in File Explorer. This is because the MBR partition table cannot address space exceeding 2TB. 4. The Master Boot Record or EFI information area (GPT header) becomes corrupted due to accidental insertion and removal. 5. Issues caused by bad sectors.

As you can tell, not all the events require fixes. Many hard drives come with an OEM partition or a recovery partition for factory restore purposes, and it's usually invisible in My Computer. So, when you find a new hard drive showing less disk space than advertised, go to "My Computer" (in Windows 7 and 8) or "This PC" (in Windows 8.1 and 10) > "Manage" > "Disk Management" and check the actual space taken by the recovery partition.

For other straightforward reasons, you can troubleshoot quickly. For example, show hidden files and run an antivirus scan to check if the hard drive appears full. If the issue persists, proceed with the relevant solutions below. I hope they assist you. Feel free to click the buttons below to share this article and inform more users on how to resolve this error.

Solution 1: Update Hard Drive Driver

Step 1. Click "Start," type Device Manager, and press "Enter."

Step 2. Click and expand "Disk drives." Right-click on the hard drive showing the incorrect capacity, then select "Update driver."

Step 3. Choose "Search automatically for updated driver software." If this fails, you can manually search for and install the updated driver software on the manufacturer's website.

If the hard drive driver is up to date and issues persist, try uninstalling and reinstalling the driver. If the process of updating the hard drive driver seems complicated, you can seek assistance from reliable driver updater software like DriverHandy.

Solution 2: Reformat the External or Internal Hard Drive

The following two methods will guide you on how to format the hard drive using the Command Prompt and a partition management tool. The former requires specific computer knowledge. Hence, if you are not comfortable with CMD, for safety's sake, it's recommended to use the user-friendly formatting tool in Method 1.

Method 1: Format Hard Drive with an Easy Formatting Tool

If you're not familiar with Command Prompt, you can opt for a professional and user-friendly hard drive formatting tool. I recommend tools Partition Master. Download it to effortlessly format your HDD, SSD, SD card, or USB drive.

Step 1. Right-click the hard drive partition and choose the "Format" option.

Step 2. In the new window, set the Partition label, File system, and Cluster size for the partition, then click "OK".

Step 3. A warning window will appear; click "Yes" to proceed.

Step 4. Click the "Execute 1 Task(s)" button, then click "Apply" to start formatting the hard drive partition.

Method 2: Format Hard Drive via Command Prompt

Compared to tools like Partition Master, using CMD can be a bit more complex for beginners to format a hard drive. Therefore, it's essential to be cautious with the steps outlined below:

Step 1. Click "Start", type cmd in the search box. Right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator".

Step 2. Type diskpart and press "Enter". Then, input and execute the following commands in order.

Step 3. Type list disk and press "Enter". This will list all the disk drives, including any external drives connected to the computer.

Step 4. Check the number of the hard drive that's showing the incorrect capacity in Windows. Type select disk + disk number, and hit Enter. For instance, type select disk 1. This tells Diskpart to format disk 1.

Step 5. Type clean. This step begins to clean up all files and folders on the selected hard drive.

Step 6. Type create partition primary and press "Enter". This creates a new partition on the disk.

Step 7. Type format fs=ntfs (or format fs=exfat) and press "Enter". You're instructing diskpart to format the drive with a file system, whether that's NTFS, exFAT, and so on.

Step 8. Type assign to set a drive letter for the new partition.

That's all about how to partition primary and format hard drive via diskpart format command. Is this method complicated for you? If so, turn to the tool Partition Master with just one click.

Solution 3: Convert Hard Drive from MBR to GPT

If the (external) hard drive shows less space than it should due to the MBR style, you can resolve this issue by converting MBR to GPT and then extending the partition by incorporating the unallocated space.

The following video demonstrates how to convert MBR to GPT using Windows Disk Management and the Partition Master tool. Disk Management requires you to delete all existing partitions first. If you proceed with this method, make sure to back up your hard drive beforehand. Alternatively, you can download the partition manager to directly convert the disk between GPT and MBR while preserving partitions and data intact.

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Once you've successfully converted MBR to GPT, proceed to expand your disk as follows.

< strong > Step 1. Shrink partition to free up space to extend partition. < /strong >

If the hard drive has enough unallocated space to extend the target partition, proceed to Step 2. If not, free up some space first:

1. In the Partition Manager section, right-click on a partition adjacent to the target partition and select "Resize/Move". 2. Drag the partition ends to free up space, ensuring there is sufficient unallocated space behind the target partition. Click "OK".

Step 2. Extend the target partition.

Right-click on the target partition that you want to extend and select "Resize/Move".

Drag the target partition handle into the unallocated space to extend partition.

Step 3. Keep all changes.

Click the "Run Task" button, and then click "Apply" to save all changes.

Solution 4: Backup Data and Initialize the Hard Drive

GPT header or MBR partition table errors often lead to disk size issues. In such cases, initialization can rectify the problem of a drive displaying incorrect capacity.

Method 1: Using Disk Management

Step 1. In Windows 10/8, press "Windows + R", type "diskmgmt.msc", and hit OK to open Disk Management. In Windows 7, right-click "Computer", choose "Manage", and launch Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click the hard drive or SSD you want to initialize, and then click "Initialize Disk". If the disk is listed as Offline, right-click it first and select Online.

Step 3. In the Initialize Disk dialog box, select the correct disk to initialize. Then click OK to accept the default partition style, or you can change the partition style (GPT or MBR) as you wish.

Method 2: Using Partition Manager Tool

Step 1. Launch tools Partition Master and go to Partition Manager.

Step 2. Right-click the target disk - HDD or SSD and select "Initialize to MBR" or "Initialize to GPT". Click "Execute Task" and "Apply" to save the changes.

0:00-0:18 Initialize to MBR; 0:19-0:44 Initialize to GPT;

Solution 5: Check for Physical Bad Sectors or Replace the Disk

Too many bad sectors can make the disk unable to read and write correctly and show the wrong capacity in Windows. Thus, you should check and repair partition errors to rectify the problem. If the situation is terrible, and your hard disk has too many physical bad sectors, you have to consider replacing the new file after backing up the data.

Here are the translations for "final words" in various languages, in American English: 1. Chinese (Simplified): Last words Chinese (Traditional): 最後的詞語 (Zhōngwén's last words) 2. Spanish: Palabras finales 3. French: Derniers mots 4. German: Last words 5. Italian: Parole finali 6. Japanese: 最後の言葉 (Saigo no kotobā, Japanese last words) 7. Korean: 마지막 말 (Majimak mal, Korean last words) 8. Arabic: الكلمات الأخيرة (Al-kalimāt al-akhirah, Arabic last words) 9. Russian: Последние слова (Posledniye slova, Russian last words) 10. Portuguese: Últimas palavras (Portuguese last words) 11. Hindi: अंतिम शब्द (Antim shabd, Hindi last words) 12. Dutch: Last words 13. Swedish: Sista orden (Swedish last words) 14. Turkish: Son sözlere (Turkish last words) 15. Greek: Τελικά λόγια (Telika lógia, Greek last words) Keep in mind that these are just a few examples, and there are many more languages with their own translations for "final words."

These methods can help you fix the wrong capacity issue on internal or external hard drives in Windows 10/8/7. A reliable tool like AOMEI Partition Assistant is quite useful for formatting, initializing, converting, and resizing hard drives. Additionally, it excels in merging, creating, deleting partitions, recovering lost partitions, migrating OS to SSD, and more. Give it a try.

"External Hard Drive Displaying Incorrect Capacity FAQs"

With these helpful tips, you can easily and quickly fix the incorrect capacity issue. If you have other related questions about hard drives showing half capacity in Windows or other incorrect capacities, feel free to browse through the following FAQs.

Why do hard drives show incorrect capacity in Windows?

There are several reasons why Windows might display an incorrect amount of available storage space. These reasons include:

• Invisible shadow files
• Formatting overhead
• Hidden recovery partitions
• Misleading storage capacities advertised by hard drive manufacturers and more.
If you need these translated into a specific language, please let me know.

How do I restore my hard drive to its full capacity?

< strong > There are five effective ways to restore the hard drive to full capacity: < / strong >

Here are the translations for the languages you've listed in English:
1. Update Hard Drive Driver
2. Reformat the Hard Drive
3. Convert MBR to GPT
4. Initialize the Hard Drive
5. Check Physical Errors
These phrases are already in English. If you need them translated into another language, please specify which language you require.

How do I fix the USB size issue in Windows?

The best way to restore a USB drive to its full capacity is to format it. There are several methods to accomplish this task: you can format a USB flash drive using File Explorer, Command Prompt, Disk Management, or a third-party partition manager - Partition Master tool.

How do I check the capacity of my external hard drive?

To check the capacity of the external hard drive:

Step 1. Open File Explorer. Right-click on your external hard drive.

Step 2. Select Properties.

Step 3. You can view the capacity of your flash drive, including capacity used, and free space.