unfortunately, a week ago there was a blackout and my pc could not start up windows afterwards... so i formatted it, however, when i checked my hard drive space, the maximum capacity was only 185 gbs. My original maximum capacity was 250, this is my second time formatting the pc and the same thing has happened twice, why is that? (the first time i formatted i was left with 210 gbs) My father says that the HD is devided into paritions but he doesn't know how to connect them together again. What is wrong and what should i do? Any help is greatly appreciated:-(

My guess is you have system restore enabled and when you formatted, you just reinstalled XP over the old install, as opposed to a complete format and reinstall. Go to My Computer-->Tools-->Folder Options-->View. Check show Hidden Files and Folders and uncheck the hide protected operating system files and folders. Then go C (or whatever drive letter is your primary HD partition)--> System Volume Information. Mouse over that folder or right click it and click properties and see if there's a huge amount of data in it. If there this, then simply disabling System Restore will empty the System Volume Information folder.

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my ssystem volume information folder is empty... what else could possibly cause the problem? also, its not like the gone space is shown as taken (180/250) it is shown as the maximum capacity has dissappeared (180/180) even though i HAD a 250 gb HD