Nov 13, 2020 • Filed to: USB Recovery • Proven solutions
- Best External Hard Drives
- External Hard Drive Showing Wrong Capacity Mac
- External Hard Drive Wrong Capacity Mac
Isn't it annoying when you have a bunch of free space on your USB Drive, but you can't use it because your USB Drive is not showing its full capacity on Windows? This issue can occur in your Drive due to various reasons, but it can restrict you to access your Drive properly. Thus, to use your Drive properly, you are required to understand the issue and restore your USB Drive to its full capacity on Windows.
Part 1: Why My USB Drive is Not Showing Full Capacity in Windows?
Update hard drive driver. To update hard drive driver, do as follow: Step 1. Click on 'Start' and type. Cloned Hard Drive Shows Wrong Size - Quick Fix Once For All; Cloned Hard Drive Shows Wrong Size - Quick Fix Once For All. If the cloned hard dive shows wrong size in Windows 10/8.1/8/7, you may not do it right. Learn how to clone a hard drive to a larger drive without leaving unallocated space here.
Let's have a look at the various reasons causing your USB Drive to not show full capacity in Windows:
- Formatting Issues:
Most of the time such issues occur due to faulty formatting of your USB Drive. Formatting your Drive with incorrect methods or configuring it in the wrong way can lead to your Drive becoming inaccessible for the most part.
- Multiple Partitions:
Your USB Drives and other such external drives are meant to have a single partition. Thus, when you divide your USB drive into multiple partitions, Windows fail to recognize more than one partition, resulting in your USB Drive not showing full capacity.
- Damaged Drive:
Physical damage to your USB Drive might result in a change in its capacity. The capacity shown might shrink or extend, but it will become inaccessible in your System. Although it's hardly possible to repair a physically damaged drive, you can try to recover your data from it.
Part 2: How to Restore USB Drive to Full Capacity in Windows 10/8/7?
Best External Hard Drives
It's easy to restore your USB Drive to its full capacity on Windows, the only condition is it shouldn't be physically damaged. You can easily achieve the objective by using one of the methods listed below, but these methods will erase all of your data from USB Drive, thus, it's recommended to take a backup.
Method 1. Restore USB drive to Full Capacity Using CMD
You can try the Command Prompt on your Windows to restore USB Drive to its full capacity. All you need to do is to follow the commands carefully.
Step 1. You can search 'CMD' from the search panel on your Taskbar, or you can go to 'Start' and navigate to the 'Command Prompt (Admin)' option depending on the version of windows you are using i.e. 7/8/10.
Step 2. Once the Command Prompt window is open, you need to process a few commands. Type 'diskpart' and press Enter. After the given command is processed, type 'list disk' and process it by pressing Enter. The latest command should list all the drives and disks connected to your System, including the USB Drive you want to restore to full capacity.
Step 3. After all the drives are listed, you need to Enter the command 'select disk #' to select the disk you want to restore to full capacity. ('#' in the command 'select disk #' should be replaced with the Number or Letter of the Disk you want to restore.)
Step 4. After the selection of the disk, give in the command 'clean' to wipe the disk. Once it's cleaned successfully type the command 'create partition primary' and hit Enter. This will form a new partition on your USB Drive.
Step 5. Once the partition is created, you need to Enter the command 'format fs=fat32 quick' to format your newly created partition to the FAT32 file system.
Method 2: Format USB Drive to Original State with Disk Management
Disk Management is another integrated feature of your Windows system that lets you restore your USB drive to its original state. Restoring your USB Drive to the original state will also restore it to its full capacity.
Step 1. Go to the search panel on the Task Bar of your home screen on Windows, and search for 'Disk Management' or 'diskmgmt.msc'. Click on the topmost result to go to the 'Disk Management' window.
Step 2. On the 'Disk Management' window, locate the USB Drive that you want to restore to full capacity. Right-click on it, and click on the 'Format' option from the context menu.
Step 3. You will see a pop-up window. Configure the parameters for formatting, choose FAT32 or exFAT file system, uncheck the 'Quick Format' option and click 'OK'. This will initiate the formatting process including the treatment of Bad Sectors on your Drive.
Wait for the formatting process to reach 100%. Once completed, your USB Drive will be formatted to the original state. This will restore USB Drive to full capacity on Windows, but you will lose all of your data.
Part 3: How to Recover Lost Files from USB after Restoring it to Full Capacity?
Both the above-mentioned methods to restore your USB Drive to its full capacity will erase all of your data from the Drive. In such a case, where all of your important data is deleted, all you can do is to try to recover it from the USB Drive. The only way to successfully recover your data is to use the Recoverit Data Recovery tool.
With the help of the Recoverit data recovery tool, you can recover all the data from your USB Drive very easily. It's minimalistic and user-friendly UI makes it easy to use for everyone. And, its powerful set of features makes it one of the most reliable data recovery tools out there.
Recoverit Data Recovery - The Best File Recovery Software
- You can recover all kinds of data like Audio, Video, Documents, ZIP, etc.
- You can recover lost files from USB Drive, Pen Drive, SSDs, HDDs, SD card, PC, Mobile, Camera, etc.
- You can configure the scanning process by using filters like File Type, File Path, Date, Size, etc.
User Guide to Recover Data:
Preparation:
- Once you have restored USB Drive to full capacity, make sure to reconnect it with your System and check if it's detected or not.
- Go to the official website of the Recoverit Data Recovery tool and download the version compatible with Windows. Install the tool on your PC and launch it.
Step 1. Drive Selection
The first window you will see inside the tool is the 'Drive selection window'. Look for your connected USB Drive under the 'External Devices' section. Select your USB Drive and click on the 'Start' button to initiate the scanning process.
Step 2. Scanning Process
You will be transported to a new window, and during the scanning process, you are allowed to configure scanning through various means. From the left-hand panel, you can select a File Type or a File Path for more accurate scanning. From the right-hand panel, you can filter the scanning results by using filter options like Date, Size, Name, etc. You can also Pause and Play the scanning process.
Step 3. Recovery
You will have all the recoverable files listed on the window after the scanning is done. Navigate to the files you want to recover. You can also Preview the files to be sure of the quality of recovery. Select all the files that you want to recover and click on the 'Recover' button. You will be asked to choose a location on your PC to save files, choose a location, and click 'OK'.
After the recovery process is completed, you will be able to access all of your selected and recovered files at the location you choose.
Conclusion:
Once you have restored your USB Drive to its full capacity using any of the above methods, you will be able to use your drive properly. But, if in case, all the methods fail to restore your Drive to full capacity on Windows, then you should use Recoverit Data Recovery to recover your important files and data from the Drive without any delay.
USB Topic
- Recover USB Drive
- Format USB Drive
- Fix/Repair USB Drive
- Know USB Drive
Updated on October 23rd, 2020
This article you can find methods to restore USB drive back to full capacity so that you can make use of lost or unallocated disk space of USB drives. USB drive not showing correct capacity is one of the common issues that may happen to USB disks, if you are facing same problem, then you are at the right place. Keep reading and you can find step-by-step solutions to restore USB drive.
It's really annoying to be unable to use all USB drive's storage, but this issue just happens due to various reasons. Thus we should get a rough idea about this issue at least. USB storage devices such as external HDD, USB flash drive, pen drive, memory card, etc, play important role in daily lives. Likewise hard drive, USB disks come with different size, ranging 215 MB to 1TB. We can store large amount of data on SD card or flash drive so that we can take them to anywhere without difficulty. It's possible that a 64GB flash drive shows as 54MB only. That does not necessarily mean you have to buy a new one, as the capacity can be restored in many cases.
Let's take a close look at a real cause about this issue:
'Lately I made a bootable USB drive on a USB flash drive for crashed laptop. I fixed the system problem successfully but a new problem arose in the flash drive. The problem is that the USB's capacity shrank. The flash drive used to have 16GB storages, but it is 2.19MB in Windows Explorer only after it is made as a bootable drive. There is large free space on the flash disk when I checked it in Disk Management. But I can't do anything to unallocated space. The size does not change even though I format the partition. Do you have any idea to restore capacity? Thanks!'
USB flash drive / SD card/ pen drive not showing full capacity can happen for several reasons. Let's see some common reasons together:
- The USB drive is made to bootable disk. For instance, you burn a portable operating system on your removable drive, and you may find that the disk loses capacity. Some system changes the partition of removable disk when writing booting data.
- The USB drive is divided into two or more partition. Unlike hard drives, USB flash drive or SD card usually have only one partition, because Windows cannot recognize and access data stored on the second or other partitions. If there are multiple partitions on a flash disk, you can only see the first volume in File Explorer. Thus the capacity you can use is the first partition.
- There is unallocated space. We all know that unallocated disk space cannot be used if there is not partition created on it. The result is that you can make use of allocated space only. Therefore we can fix the problem by adding unallocated space to existing partition.
- Card reader or host devices are not well suited with the larger memory card. If you are using a card reader which is compatible with 32GB card at most, but your memory card is 64GB. It might turn or repartition the memory card to 32GB and the rest capacity won't show in Windows.
- The disk is physically damaged. If storage device is physically damaged, the capacity might change. The entire disk size in Disk Management shrinks or increases largely, or the USB drive shows 0 bytes if you check its properties. Physical damages cannot be repaired by solutions in this guide.
External Hard Drive Showing Wrong Capacity Mac
This part provides three solutions to restore USB drive backup to original capacity. The first method recovers capacity with the help of command DiskPart. If you feel this approach is difficult to you, you can try the second and third solutions which utilize a free third-part tool. Connect the USB drive or SD card to computer and you can try these resolutions.
External Hard Drive Wrong Capacity Mac
Caution: The first two solutions will completely wipe the entire USB drive in question, please backup any important files before proceeding. Besides, please be very careful to select correct before formatting or cleaning operations, or you might wipe wrong disk by mistake.
Solution 1: Restore USB flash disk back to full capacity with DiskPart
Step 1: Run Command Prompt as Administrator. On Windows 8.1 or 10, you can launch it easily by clicking the Start button and selecting option Command Prompt (Admin). If you are using Windows 7, you should click the Start button and enter cmd in the search box; then right-click cmd.exe to select Run as Administrator
Step 2: Type the following command in the Command Prompt windows and hit Enter key.
Step 3 Wwise audio extractor. : Type list disk command so that diskpart lists all disks connected to your computer, and the command should be followed by pressing Enter.
Step 4: Execute following command to select the USB disk you want to restore capacity.
Be very careful here! # is the disk number of your USB drive, You should replace # with the correct disk number. Be sure you select the correct drive, as all the rest actions will be performed on the selected disk, such as format the disk. If you select the wrong disk, you'll lose all data stored on that disk.
Step 5: Type the follow command and press Enter
Step 6: Create a new partition on the USB drive after DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.
Step 7: The following command formats the newly created partition to FAT32 file system. 2020 design v9 dongle crack torrent.
Now you can open Windows Explorer to check if the USB drive is restored to full capacity.
Solution 2: Restore USB drive back to full capacity with free partition manager
This solution will repartition the USB drive into one partition using free partition management software PartitionGuru Free. The partition process is simple and fast.
Step 1: Install and launch PartitionGuru on your computer to get the main interface.
It's really annoying to be unable to use all USB drive's storage, but this issue just happens due to various reasons. Thus we should get a rough idea about this issue at least. USB storage devices such as external HDD, USB flash drive, pen drive, memory card, etc, play important role in daily lives. Likewise hard drive, USB disks come with different size, ranging 215 MB to 1TB. We can store large amount of data on SD card or flash drive so that we can take them to anywhere without difficulty. It's possible that a 64GB flash drive shows as 54MB only. That does not necessarily mean you have to buy a new one, as the capacity can be restored in many cases.
Let's take a close look at a real cause about this issue:
'Lately I made a bootable USB drive on a USB flash drive for crashed laptop. I fixed the system problem successfully but a new problem arose in the flash drive. The problem is that the USB's capacity shrank. The flash drive used to have 16GB storages, but it is 2.19MB in Windows Explorer only after it is made as a bootable drive. There is large free space on the flash disk when I checked it in Disk Management. But I can't do anything to unallocated space. The size does not change even though I format the partition. Do you have any idea to restore capacity? Thanks!'
USB flash drive / SD card/ pen drive not showing full capacity can happen for several reasons. Let's see some common reasons together:
- The USB drive is made to bootable disk. For instance, you burn a portable operating system on your removable drive, and you may find that the disk loses capacity. Some system changes the partition of removable disk when writing booting data.
- The USB drive is divided into two or more partition. Unlike hard drives, USB flash drive or SD card usually have only one partition, because Windows cannot recognize and access data stored on the second or other partitions. If there are multiple partitions on a flash disk, you can only see the first volume in File Explorer. Thus the capacity you can use is the first partition.
- There is unallocated space. We all know that unallocated disk space cannot be used if there is not partition created on it. The result is that you can make use of allocated space only. Therefore we can fix the problem by adding unallocated space to existing partition.
- Card reader or host devices are not well suited with the larger memory card. If you are using a card reader which is compatible with 32GB card at most, but your memory card is 64GB. It might turn or repartition the memory card to 32GB and the rest capacity won't show in Windows.
- The disk is physically damaged. If storage device is physically damaged, the capacity might change. The entire disk size in Disk Management shrinks or increases largely, or the USB drive shows 0 bytes if you check its properties. Physical damages cannot be repaired by solutions in this guide.
External Hard Drive Showing Wrong Capacity Mac
This part provides three solutions to restore USB drive backup to original capacity. The first method recovers capacity with the help of command DiskPart. If you feel this approach is difficult to you, you can try the second and third solutions which utilize a free third-part tool. Connect the USB drive or SD card to computer and you can try these resolutions.
External Hard Drive Wrong Capacity Mac
Caution: The first two solutions will completely wipe the entire USB drive in question, please backup any important files before proceeding. Besides, please be very careful to select correct before formatting or cleaning operations, or you might wipe wrong disk by mistake.
Solution 1: Restore USB flash disk back to full capacity with DiskPart
Step 1: Run Command Prompt as Administrator. On Windows 8.1 or 10, you can launch it easily by clicking the Start button and selecting option Command Prompt (Admin). If you are using Windows 7, you should click the Start button and enter cmd in the search box; then right-click cmd.exe to select Run as Administrator
Step 2: Type the following command in the Command Prompt windows and hit Enter key.
Step 3 Wwise audio extractor. : Type list disk command so that diskpart lists all disks connected to your computer, and the command should be followed by pressing Enter.
Step 4: Execute following command to select the USB disk you want to restore capacity.
Be very careful here! # is the disk number of your USB drive, You should replace # with the correct disk number. Be sure you select the correct drive, as all the rest actions will be performed on the selected disk, such as format the disk. If you select the wrong disk, you'll lose all data stored on that disk.
Step 5: Type the follow command and press Enter
Step 6: Create a new partition on the USB drive after DiskPart succeeded in cleaning the disk.
Step 7: The following command formats the newly created partition to FAT32 file system. 2020 design v9 dongle crack torrent.
Now you can open Windows Explorer to check if the USB drive is restored to full capacity.
Solution 2: Restore USB drive back to full capacity with free partition manager
This solution will repartition the USB drive into one partition using free partition management software PartitionGuru Free. The partition process is simple and fast.
Step 1: Install and launch PartitionGuru on your computer to get the main interface.
Step 2: Connect the USB drive to computer and it'll be displayed in the software. All disks, partitions, files and disk parameters on the computer can be read on the main interface.
Step 3: Select the USB drive you want to restore capacity and click Quick Partition button from the toolbar.
Step 4: On the 'Partition Count' section, you should select Custom option and choose '1' so that there will be only one partition on the USB drive; As to the Advanced Options, you can choose file system format for the USB disk. Click OK button and PartitionGuru start repartition the USB drive.
Step 5: PartitionGuru will ask confirmation for the action which will wipe everything on the disk while repartitioning process. Click 'Yes', wait for a couple of seconds, and the partition will complete.
The USB flash drive will show its full capacity in Windows Explorer after it is repartitioned to single volume. Another way to recover capacity is deleting all partitions on the UDB disk and then creating a new partition on it.
Solution 3: Reuse Unallocated Space
If your USB drive contains unallocated / free space, its size will be smaller than original capacity. In this situation, you can recover USB capacity by adding unallocated space to partition. It's recommended to use PartitionGuru here again, as this software is able to add unallocated space to any existing partition on same disk without data loss.
Step 1: Launch PartitionGuru again and connect the problematic USB drive to computer.
Step 2: Right click the partition on the USB flash disk and select 'Extend Partition' from the context menu.
Step 3: Move mouse to the partition bar and drag it to include the free disk space. Click 'Start' button and PartitionGuru starts move unallocated disk space to the partition.
Step 4: Click 'Complete' button when the process finishes. Then you can check whether the capacity is restored.
