Repair and Restore a 32GB External Hard Drive to its Full Capacity

When your external hard drive only shows 32GB, don't worry. We have solutions for you. Just follow the methods provided below to recover your hard drive's full capacity:

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My external hard drive only shows 32GB available, help!

"Hello everyone, do you know how to restore a 1TB external hard drive shown as 32GB on a Windows 10 computer without losing data? I have a 1TB Seagate external hard drive with around 200GB of useful data. Last week, I installed Windows 10 on my PC and created an installation media using the external drive."

After installing Windows on my computer, I connected my external hard drive and found that my computer could read only about 32 GB of data – the amount used by Windows. What happened to the rest of my files? Is it possible to recover my lost data and restore the full capacity of my 32 GB external hard drive? How?

From online search results, it seems that many ordinary users have encountered issues with incorrect disk capacity display for hard drives, external hard drives, and USB drives, among others. The problem of a portable hard drive showing 32GB is particularly troublesome for many users. So, why would a 1TB or even 2TB external hard drive only show 32GB?

Here's a list of possible reasons why an external hard drive or USB might show only 32GB of storage capacity:

• Create a WinPE boot disk
• Create a Windows install or Windows backup image disk
• External hard drive storage error

So, how to fix the issue and get back the full capacity of external hard drive or USB, HDD? On this page, we've gathered some reliable methods for you, just follow the two parts below and get this problem solved immediately:

Part 1: Fix and Recover External Hard Drive Showing Only 32GB Capacity to Its Full Size

As mentioned above, there can be various reasons why an external hard drive, HDD, or large capacity USB flash drive only shows 32GB available. Hence, the methods to resolve this issue and restore the full capacity of the storage device can also vary. Here, you'll find three recommended approaches. You can follow any of the steps below to fix and recover your device's original full capacity immediately:

Method 1: Update the External Hard Drive's Drivers

Step 1: Connect the non-working USB flash drive to your computer and right-click on "This PC/My PC". Select "Properties".

Step 2: Click on “Device Manager” from the left pane > Expand “Universal Serial Bus controllers”. You should see a yellow exclamation mark. Right click on it and select “Update Driver” or “Update Driver Software”.

Step 3: Click on "Search for driver software automatically online"…

Method 2: Update the firmware on your external hard drive

To do so, you need to follow three steps, which we'll examine in detail below.

Step 1: Check the firmware version of your external hard drive/hard disk/USB

1. Connect the external hard drive to your computer.

2. Right-click the Windows icon and select Device Manager.

3. Select “Drive,” expand it, find your external hard drive, right-click on it, and select “Properties.”

4. Click “Details,” and then select “Hardware IDs” from the “Property” drop-down menu. The manufacturer and firmware version info will appear in the “Value” box.

Step 2: Download the firmware update for your external hard drive/device

1. Go to the manufacturer's website for your external hard drive, and navigate to their support page, or search the site for “download drivers.”

2. Click Support, Download, or Drivers.

3. Type the model number of your external hard drive or its serial number into the "Search the Knowledge Base," "Search Downloads," or "Model/Part Number" search bar to find the right driver.

4. Check for firmware updates. If there's new drive firmware available, download and install or download the firmware and install it to the portable USB drive.

Step 3: Burn the downloaded ISO and upgrade the firmware

1. Plug in the USB drive with the external hard drive's firmware ISO, then right-click the ISO and select “Burn disc image.”

2. Insert a writable CD or USB drive into your computer, then select it from the “Burner” dropdown and click “Burn.”

3. Restart your computer and the burned CD or USB drive, then press F2, F10, F12, or Esc to enter BIOS.

4. Use the arrow keys to select your CD drive or USB drive, then press Enter.

5. Follow the firmware update instructions, and you'll have a fully functional, full-capacity external drive.

Now, check if your computer recognizes it with the correct capacity. If not, proceed to Method 3 to fix this issue.

Method 3: Delete the 32GB Partition and Create a New One to Recover Full External Hard Drive Capacity

When a computer recognizes only a 32GB partition on an external or internal drive, the best way to recover the full capacity is to delete that 32GB partition and create a new one in its place:

1. Connect the external hard drive to your computer, then right-click on "Device Manager" and select "Disk Management."

2. Right-click on the 32GB partition on your external drive and choose “Erase Volume.”

Note: If you have important data on the disk, you can skip to Part 2 and use powerful data recovery software to restore all your lost data.

3. When “Disk Management” shows the unallocated space on your external hard drive, right-click it and select “New Simple Volume” to create a new partition using all the available space.

4. Rename the disk and set the file system to NTFS.

After that, you should be able to use your full-capacity external hard drive to store your data.

Part 2: Recover Data from External Hard Drive Showing Only 32GB

If you have important data saved on an external hard drive that previously showed only 32GB of space, you can use the Data Recovery Wizard tool to perform a thorough scan and easily recover all your lost data.

Data Recovery Wizard Main Features:

• Recover deleted files from the Recycle Bin, as well as HDD, SSD, USB, flash drives, SD cards, external hard drives, and more
• Restore over 1000 types of files, including photos, videos, documents, emails, and more
• Repair corrupted files while recovering data on Windows 11/10/8/7

Please download this data recovery tool and follow the steps below to retrieve files from an external hard drive.

Video Tutorial: Recover Data from External Hard Drive

Step-by-step tutorial:

Step 1: Select and scan the external hard drive

• Download and install the Data Recovery tool on your desktop or laptop. • Connect the external hard drive to your computer. • Run the Data Recovery Wizard, select the external hard drive from the list of external drives, and then click Scan for lost data.

Step 2: Review the scan results

• Data recovery software will immediately scan all data on the selected drive, including deleted, corrupted, and existing data.
• You can use the filter feature to quickly locate a specific type of file, such as images, Word, Excel, PDF, videos, emails, and more.

Step 3: Preview and recover the data

• Double-click on a file from the scan results to preview it. • Select the files you need and click “Recover”. • Choose a different drive from the original location to save your recovered files.

After that, you should be able to use your 1TB or other Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, or Lecia external hard drive to store data again.

External hard drive only showing 32GB - FAQ

Having trouble? Check out the frequently asked questions below for more help.

Why does my hard drive only have 32 GB?

Here's a list of possible reasons why an external hard drive or USB might only show 32GB capacity:

• External hard drive storage error
• Hard drive not initialized
• USB turns into a RAW drive

< strong > 2. Why does the FAT32 file system only support storage devices up to 32 GB in size?

That's because there is a size limit for FAT32 partitions:

• Maximum file size: 4 GB
• Maximum partition size: 32 GB

The FAT32 file system only supports partitions of up to 32 GB in size, and individual files of up to 4 GB.

3. How can I get around the FAT32 limits?

To avoid the error of files being too large to be saved on the target file system, and easily overcome the 4GB file size limit issue with the FAT32 format, you can try any of the following three methods.

• Format your file system as exFAT or NTFS
• Split your files into smaller segments
• Compress your files to a smaller size