Notebook Hard drive

[ComputerDragon79]

I've having a problem with my notebook hard drive. It is a 60 gig Hard drive, but the BIOS is only seeing around 40. When I try to install Windows on it, the Windows Setup only sees an 8 Gig partition, and it won't let me install Windows on it because there's nowhere comptaible to install system files. I'm relatively sure that there's nothing wrong with the laptop hard drive, because I tried to view it on a desktop (I can do that by combining an IDE to USB adaptor and an adaptor that changes laptop hard drives into an IDE) and was able to see the full 60 GB. Also, the laptop used to be able to see the entire 60 GB as well. It was recently taken apart and put back together, and ever since, there's been a problem with the hard drive. I THINK it might be that little plastic adaptor that connects the laptop to the hard drive, because there are gold pins missing on it. But I'm not sure. Any ideas?