Hard drive CAPACITY question for you geniuses

[skyline]

hey folks,

i just got a new T42 a month ago and i love it so far, just one question though...i got a 40 gb hard drive and when i right click on properties of it, it says something like CAPACITY: 32.9 GBs

already too, it says i am down to 18 Gb of free space and all ive really loaded is a little music and a few essential programs

im a little worried because i need this to last at the very least two or three years..

any suggestions or advice, what happened to my 40 gig HD, i know they partition some of it for their own thing, but does that take up 7 gigs?

thanks so much

[jdhurst]

First, an xx Gb hard disk is less than xx Gb after initializing and formatting.

Next, right click on My Computer and select Manage. When that opens, click on Disk Management. That will show you what is left from after the Formatting and the PreDesktop Area. My 60 Gb hard drive show 53 Gb available after initialization and PreDesktop Area.

Then, basic Windows XP and the IBM Tools plus Microsoft Office XP, Adobe Acrobat and that kind of stuff takes about 6 Gb.

Then System Restore can take up to 12 percent of your drive if you don't set it to a lower value.

The rest is your files, and personal files can be deceptively large. I have 4 Gb in general files such as software, drivers and like stuff, 9 Gb in 5 VMware Virtual Machines, and just about 1 Gb in documents.

After all of that (PreDesktop, XP, Virtual Machines, Personal Files) I have 28 Gb free on the 60 Gb drive.

.... JDHurst

[skyline]

thanks a lot JD, much appreciated info, i guess ill just have to manage my 40 gigs well to make them last, i was unaware that much stuff took up space, thanks for the help

i guess i can always get an external

thanks - mark

[monty cantsin]

hey folks,

i just got a new T42 a month ago and i love it so far, just one question though...i got a 40 gb hard drive and when i right click on properties of it, it says something like CAPACITY: 32.9 GBs

[...]

any suggestions or advice, what happened to my 40 gig HD,

Sounds perfectly ok to me. Simply consider the size of your Windows installation, the paging file, the hibernation file, the amount of space the automatic system recovery of Windows XP and IBM's Hidden Protected Area consume, and, last not least, don't forget about the mathematical trick of the hard drive manufacturers to make their drives look larger than they really are (they calculate with multiples of 1000 where 1024 would be correct, thus a drive advertised as exactly 40GB is actually only around 38.147GB).

i know they partition some of it for their own thing, but does that take up 7 gigs?

No, not quite, but see above for the mathematical trick involved.