I just bought a 200 GB hard drive and i was wondering why it is not the full 220gb? my 80gb is also not the full amount, they are 189.7 gb and 70.5 gb, i searched em and it said no files even in hidden folders, is this just a normality or is there something wrong?

Where are you getting these ideas from. Or rather the HD space count?

If you go to My computer and click drive C or local disk it will tell you how much is on your drive.

From that you subtract from the 200gb and you get 200gb. Or add it back up. See what im saying?

When you put a OS on a new hard drive it takes up space. When you add files and software it takes up space.

My pc has a 30gb HD in it and it says it has 27.7 total. It says this in My computer. Here is a snapshot I took to show you:


This is normal but if you have no files on it yet but have the OS it still is going to say a little off.

Put it this way it always has for me. I think its normal I could be wrong but why you are losing almost 12gb of your 200gb HD is puzzling....

Hope this has helped you out some.

That is because there are two different standards of measure being used by your computer and the manufacturer, both correct, but different. Your computer works in base 2 (binary), while the real world works in base 10 (decimal).

So now to get really confusing...

2^10 = 1024 bytes, which we know as 1 kilobyte (difference of 24 going from binary to decimal)

2^20 = 1048576 bytes, or 1 megabyte (differnece of 48576 going from binary to decimal)

2^30 = is rounded off to represent 1 gigabyte.

*********

Now for more confusion..

Your 200 gig should actually have 200 * 1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes, which is 214 748 364 800 bytes, but it doesn't. The difference between 200 (manufacturers measurement) gigs and 214.7 (binary) gigs is between 7% and 8%.

If you subtract that 8%, that puts your actual hard disk size down to about 192 gigabytes. The disk drive reserves a certain amount for operation, and there are always some bad sectors, so another 3-4% is not unusual.

So when you are looking at a hard drive capacity, you are looking at the manufacturers numbers, which are in decimal. The computer sees it in binary..

It's a way for the manufacturerer to make the hard drive seem bigger than it really is.

Groov. As pc literate as I am I have to laugh as you said this and how true it was:




I just have to say that. That one will drive the smart pc person bonkers.

But thanks I did learn a bit I think. Need to read it again. Hope you dont mind.

i dont know how but i understand, thanks

Glad you figured it out. If you need any more help from any of us just ask......