Pi boot up and sdcard 0Gb problem

[paulclem1]

Hello, please can someone help? 2 problems - HELP!
number 1) I have been running the Pi with the command prompt and with the "nano"editor to write programs for a few months while I've been getting to grips with it...but I needed to get Raspbian working. I has an 8Gb "sandisk" but a check under linux revealed no disk space above about 1.3Gb, so I copied everything on to a new and correctly formatted 16Gb Kingston grade 10 SD card and now all I can get on screen at start up is a choice of operating systems (one of which is Raspbian). If I click on any of the options for installing any of those OS's, it tells me that there is no disk space left, but if I put the SD card back in my laptop and do a "properties"check, at least 10Gb is free.
number 2)!! I cannot seem to find any of the python programs I wrote under the command prompt, when I search for them with the DS card in my laptop under both Ubuntu and Windows.
Can anyone help with these please?
If I could at least get the original startup routine and the command prompt back, I'd be happy, as I'd like to be able to teach schoolchildren how to get on with the Pi (I'm an ex-hardware Engineer, now teacher, and learning the ins and outs of Python right now)
Thanks in anticipation... I believe a good chap called Gordon helped me out on this forum last year when I was getting my hands dirty with the Pi in when teaching in Thailand last year, (In Ealing now, and yes I've been to a Pi jam session in Twickenham before all this happened) if you're there and can put me right again, please HELP!!! Paul Clements.

[daveyork]

Hi Paul,

When you installed Raspbian did you enable the option in raspi-config to use the entire SD Card?
If not it could be that.

Dave

[paulclem1]

Hello Dave, thanks, but I can't get into Raspbian as I can't start it. Can you tell me please, is it possible to read the raspi config file by inserting the SD card into my laptop? Sorry to be a pain, I'm not a software geek at all (ex-hardware Engineer!!) Ta very much,...

[paulclem1]

Hi Dave, thanks for the info, please can you look at this - have copied this from the raspi-config, and tell me if and what of the following I need to change to get the program to use all of the disk? (Maybe it's correct?) I presume the text which is preceded by hash are just comments..thanks, Paul.
# now set up an init.d script
cat <<\EOF > /etc/init.d/resize2fs_once &&
#!/bin/sh
### BEGIN INIT INFO
# Provides: resize2fs_once
# Required-Start:
# Required-Stop:
# Default-Start: 2 3 4 5 S
# Default-Stop:
# Short-Description: Resize the root filesystem to fill partition
# Description:
### END INIT INFO

. /lib/lsb/init-functions

case "$1" in
start)
log_daemon_msg "Starting resize2fs_once" &&
resize2fs /dev/root &&
rm /etc/init.d/resize2fs_once &&
update-rc.d resize2fs_once remove &&
log_end_msg $?
;;
*)
echo "Usage: $0 start" >&2
exit 3
;;
esac
EOF
chmod +x /etc/init.d/resize2fs_once &&
update-rc.d resize2fs_once defaults &&
if [ "$INTERACTIVE" = True ]; then
whiptail --msgbox "Root partition has been resized.\nThe filesystem will be enlarged upon the next reboot"