1TB Drive shows 32GB Capacity. Primary Partition 32GB - Unallocated partition 899GB

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
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I have WD My Passport 0748 USB Device 1TB

P/N WDBBEP0010BBK-01

I used the drive to create a factory default backup drive for my new laptop (big mistake).

(I had previously formatted the drive to FAT32 so I could use it as a movie library and play on my tv, all with no problems)

Now the drive has two partitions, showing the following

  1. Primary 32GB (max capacity)
  2. Unallocated 899.48GB

Only the Primary partition is recognized, which means my 1TB USB Drive is now only 32GB.

Is there any way I can wipe the drive, and reset it one single partition?

I can not reformat it to 1TB beacuse the max capacity is shown as 32GB

Many thanks

Anthony

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Anthony, short answer is yes. 

You can do this several ways but i think though disk management in windows is the best way (and easiest).

Getting to disk management depends on your operating system so im going to assume you have windows 7 but if you dont these steps may varry (can be googled easily though “how to get to disk management in windows (insert version)”

Instructions from:  http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/disk-management-windows-7.htm

Click on the  Start  button and then choose  Control Panel.

Click on the  System and Security  link.

Note:  If you’re viewing the Large icons or Small icons view of Control pannel, you won’t see this link so just click on the  Administrative Tools  icon and skip to Step 4.

In the System and Security window, click on the  Administrative Tools  heading located near the bottom of the window.

In the Administrative Tools window, double-click on the  Computer Management  icon.

When Computer Management opens, click on  Disk Management  on the left side of the window, located under Storage.

After a brief loading period, Disk Management should now appear on the right side of the Computer Management window.

Note:  If you don’t see Disk Management listed, you may need to click on the  |>  icon to the left of the Storage icon

Format /partition drive as desired

How i get to disk management

  1. Start
  2. Run
  3. type “mmc” then hit ENTER
  4. May need to authorize it to run (select yes)
  5. inside of MMC (Console 1) go to File > Add/Remove Snap-in…  > add Disk Management from the list on the left
  6. Leave on “this computer” then click finish > then OK
  7. Inside of Console 1 click on Disk Management

In side of disk management you manage the drive in most ways simply with a right click.

If you want to wipe and start over i would do the following

  1. right click on the 32gb partition
  2. Delete partition > or Extend (not to sure how well this works if its even available)
  3. If you delete the partition you should end up with 1 large chunk of unalocated space
  4. Right click, create partition, default size will be for the entire section of unallocated space. 

Hope this helps!

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