I seem to have lost 4Gb of disk space!

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thinkpadfreak · #1 Post by **thinkpadfreak** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:57 pm

Hey all

I've recently upgraded my HD to 60GB, 7200RPM Toshiba model and its only showing 55.89GB as its capacity!?!?!? Where did 4GB disappear to? Im pretty sure I paid for 60GB...130 freaking dollars to be exact! Is this normal? I did a clean install of XP with no hidden partition, incase anyone's wondering. Please help me find my very expensive 4GB

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LtTPfan · #2 Post by **LtTPfan** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:05 pm

On your Control Panel go to Administrative Tools>> Computer Management>> Disk Management and see if ther is an IBM_SERVICE partition.

thinkpadfreak · #3 Post by **thinkpadfreak** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:18 pm

No such partition, LtTPfan. As I've said, I bought a brand new HD and clean installed XP on it. I didnt even "ghost" my old HD. I formatted my brand new drive and installed XP, period. Im pretty sure this isnt normal...maybe couple hundred MB, but 4GB?!?!?

smstewart_9554 · #4 Post by **smstewart_9554** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:39 pm

Someone please correct if I'm wrong, but harddrives are sold as something called GB (for 1*10^9 bytes) whereas actual space is calculated as 1 gigabyte has 1024 megabytes has 1024 kilobytes has 1024 bytes. This means all harddrives sold has "60GB" actually only have 55.88gigabytes of real space (60,000,000,000/(1024*1024*1024). This has to do with the fact that in computer science, 1024 is represented by 2^10.

LtTPfan · #5 Post by **LtTPfan** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:43 pm

Did you actually check or are you just saying there's no partition because you didn't install one? If you installed R&R and created rescue media, it installed one for you.

thinkpadfreak · #6 Post by **thinkpadfreak** » Thu Jan 12, 2006 11:54 pm

I actually checked, LtTPfan...and I didnt install R&R. Is that really true, smstewart_9554? Wow, I've never heard of such a thing. I definately need to do some research on this...do I smell a class action suit against HD makers? lol. If smstewart_9554 is actually right about this we definately have a case against drive makers. Talk about false advertising!

Aroc · #7 Post by **Aroc** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:16 am

10^9/2^30 is approx 0.93

60GB x 0.93 is approx 55.8GB.

When you select the disk properties in Windows Explorer, note the capacity in bytes, not gigabytes. It should be near 60,000,000,000. Which is what you bought. Windows is mistakenly reporting the GB totals. This is normal. The larger the drive, the larger the descrepency.

If you are curious, you can read this thread. http://episteme.arstechnica.com/groupee ... 4008107731

Aroc · #8 Post by **Aroc** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:21 am

thinkpadfreak wrote:If smstewart_9554 is actually right about this we definately have a case against drive makers. Talk about false advertising!

The hard drive makers sold you 60,000,000,000 bytes, which giga being the SI prefix for billion (1,000,000,000) is technically correct. Windows is misreporting the file size in GiB as GB. This is nothing new.

LtTPfan · #9 Post by **LtTPfan** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:22 am

I seem to remember drives actually being larger than stated but my 40 gig is only like 37.

Good luck on the class action. Maybe they'll be forced to be more accurate in their ratings like the automakers are going to have to with their mileage claims. I ain't hold'n my breath, however.

#10 Post by **GomJabbar** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:24 am

Why does my hard drive report a lower capacity than what is on the drive’s label?

thinkpadfreak · #11 Post by **thinkpadfreak** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:31 am

Thanks all for your insightful replys...hey LtTPfan, I probably aint gonna be holdin my breath either

. I was gonna buy a new T60 with that class action lawsuit money

christopher_wolf · #12 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:53 am

I don't think you are going to win any class action lawsuits against HDD makers by claiming that you didn't get X amount of GB; it is stated on all HDDs sold.

turbolium · #13 Post by **turbolium** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 1:04 am

cheaters !!!!

even if you want to buy a 2.0L car its usually somthing like 1998 there do my 2milliliters go????

so i guess no luck with lawsuits

tUNA COWboy · #14 Post by **tUNA COWboy** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 11:11 am

Might as well include Processor speed discrepancies as well, cause I'm pretty sure I bought a Pentium 3 1Ghz back in the day, but the actual speed reported was 996Mhz, I feel cheated, where were my 3Mhz?

J/K

christopher_wolf · #15 Post by **christopher_wolf** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:02 pm

Same goes for RAM Memory.

Hanson · #16 Post by **Hanson** » Fri Jan 13, 2006 4:45 pm

tUNA COWboy wrote:Might as well include Processor speed discrepancies as well, cause I'm pretty sure I bought a Pentium 3 1Ghz back in the day, but the actual speed reported was 996Mhz, I feel cheated, where were my 3Mhz?

J/K

LOL, I have a 1GHZ desktop and still use it now. It says 1000MHZ. I'm pretty sure you can overclock it a little, I managed to overclock mine by an extra 35MHZ without causing system instability.

I seem to have lost 4Gb of disk space!

I seem to have lost 4Gb of disk space!

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