HD only 8GB, only option = buy?

[thunderwolf429]

I have an HP zv5330. It stopped loading Windows recently, so I reformatted with the recovery disks; however, it says I only have 8GB instead of 80GB. I thought it was a partitioning issue, but I checked BIOS and it only shows the 8GB, nothing else. Someone told me that this probably means it's a hardware problem and I'll pretty much have to get a new hard drive. Is this the case? Is there anything else that I can do?

FYI: I'm very much a novice, so I'd appreciate anyone who answers talking to me like I'm an idiot and don't know how to do anything, because chances are, I don't...

Thanks for any help!

Suzanne

[Rich M]

Are you certain there are no other partitions showing? HP's have a recovery partition on their drives and somehow I am wondering if you are looking at that. Don't just go by C drive in bios as that can be shown as anything in bios or setup.