have tried formating (quick and full) in both fat32 and NTFS
This is a brand new drive that has neve been used. Decided to use it for storage only. Plugged it into an external enclosure that I know works. The HDD only shows up as 3.52gb
I can load files up to 3.52gb and the drive functions perfectly, appart from the fact it is 156.5gb missing
Your HDD apparently only has one partition with the size of 3.52GiB.
Windows is horrible when it comes to partitioning, so I recommend downloading the latest GParted LiveCD (free and open source) and boot it. Either delete the small partition and create a new or resize the preexisting one. It has a graphical user interface, so it is pretty straight forward. Just make sure to select the right drive!
That could be a bit out of my capabilities - I would probably wipe out my C drive. A gret pity to waste it, think I paid about £40 for it about five years ago…
Why would it come with a patition on it? seriously this is brand new and was never plugged in before last night.
thanks for all the advice and pointers - I found something on windows 7 (disk management) that allowed me to repartition the drive in just a few minutes. Drive is now working perfectly.