

Here, you can select a preferred file system or change the formatting scheme for the drive.Now, right-click the icon of the hard drive that has been shrunk and go to the “Format” option from the context menu.Connect your hard drive to your computer (if it is an external drive) and launch My Computer (or This PC) on Windows Explorer.The best part is that you can learn how to restore a hard drive capacity with this method easily by following these steps: To overcome this and fix the 1 or 2 TB hard drive only showing 32 GB space issue, you can follow these suggestions.įix 1: Perform a Quick Format of the Hard DiskĪ while back, when my external hard drive was only showing 32 GB space, I performed a quick format and it instantly fixed the problem. How to Restore a Hard Drive to its Original Capacity?Īs you can see, there could be so many reasons for an external hard drive for only showing 32 GB space. Lastly, your hard drive can be attacked by malware or might be suffering from a logical error (like unassigned storage).The external hard drive might not be removed properly or suffers from a connectivity issue.The respective drivers running on your system could be corrupt or outdated.The connected hard drive has not been authorized or is blocked by your computer.The file system of the hard drive might not be supported by your computer (like using an APFS drive on Windows).If you have made the hard drive a bootable media (like Windows PE), then it might only show the shrunk space of 32 GB.You would have formatted the hard drive incorrectly or the process could be halted in between.Ideally, your hard drive’s capacity could have shrunk due to the following reasons: To learn how to restore a hard drive capacity, it is important to understand the common triggers behind this issue. Why Does 1 TB Hard Drive Only Shows 32 GB Space? Part 3: How to Retrieve Data from a Hard Disk That Lost its Capacity?.Part 2: How to Restore a Hard Drive to its Original Capacity?.Part 1: Why Does 1 TB Hard Drive Only Shows 32 GB Space?.
