where's my 40 gigs?

G

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

My Dimension 3000 comes with a 40 GB hard drive. Windows Explorer
reports Capacity: 34.4 GB.

What's the story on this? Thanks.
 
G

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Nate <none@none.none> wrote:

>My Dimension 3000 comes with a 40 GB hard drive. Windows Explorer
>reports Capacity: 34.4 GB.
>
>What's the story on this? Thanks.

How long have you been buying computers/hard drives?

HD mfgrs don't use the same GB that OS publishers do.

Add in the fact that the mfgrs "40GB" is a raw,
unpartitioned/unformatted number, and the discrepancy increases.

Try googling on something like "hard drive size". There are a
number of web sites out there that explain all of this, and
include tables to allow easy conversion from one to the other.

[OK, just did one myself - if you want more, you can do it.]

"Why doesn't my hard drive show the correct size?

The short answer to there's two different measurement formats
used. Decimal (GB) and binary (GiB) formats. Binary is used by
Windows and decimal is used by the manufacturers. Both the
manufacturer and Windows are giving you the "correct" number.

Binary numbers are numbers that are a power of 2.
Decimal numbers are numbers that are a power of 10.

2^10 is 1,024 the closest Decimal number is 10^3 or 1,000
2^20 is 1,048,576 The closest Decimal number is 10^6 or 1,000,000
2^30 is 1,073,741,824 The closest Decimal number is 10^9 or
1,000,000,000

Now lets look at common terms:
Kilo means 1 thousand
Mega means 1 million
Giga means 1 billion
Tera means 1 Trillion

1000/1024 = .9765625
1,000,000/1,048,576 = .9536743
1,000,000,000/1,073,741,824 = .93132257

Noticing a trend yet? "



--
OJ III
[Email to Yahoo address may be burned before reading.
Lower and crunch the sig and you'll net me at comcast.]
 
G

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

Does your computer have a hidden recovery partition?

Ted Zieglar

"Nate" <none@none.none> wrote in message
news:hg5s11t0mh70ata7d4jie8g4s8rrutjudr@4ax.com...
> My Dimension 3000 comes with a 40 GB hard drive. Windows Explorer
> reports Capacity: 34.4 GB.
>
> What's the story on this? Thanks.
>
>
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Nate" <none@none.none> wrote in message
news:hg5s11t0mh70ata7d4jie8g4s8rrutjudr@4ax.com...
| My Dimension 3000 comes with a 40 GB hard drive. Windows Explorer
| reports Capacity: 34.4 GB.
|
| What's the story on this? Thanks.

The approximate formatted capacity of what drive manufacturers call a 40GB
drive is 37.25 GB.

Dell includes a hidden partition with diagnostic utilities that account for
the remaining discrepancy.

If you are interested in the math on the advertised vs. actual capacity of a
harddrive see;
http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_sid=5oxSP*2h&p_lva=&p_faqid=615&p_created=1034613413&p_sp=cF9zcmNoPTEmcF9ncmlkc29ydD0mcF9yb3dfY250PTM1JnBfc2VhcmNoX3RleHQ9RGVjaW1hbCB2cy4gQmluYXJ5JnBfc2VhcmNoX3R5cGU9NCZwX3Byb2RfbHZsMT1_YW55fiZwX3Byb2RfbHZsMj1_YW55fiZwX2NhdF9sdmwxPX5hbnl_JnBfc29ydF9ieT1kZmx0JnBfcGFnZT0x&p_li=

http://tinyurl.com/3an62

--
D

I'm not an MVP a VIP nor do I have ESP.
I was just trying to help.
Please use your own best judgment before implementing any suggestions or
advice herein.
No warranty is expressed or implied.
Your mileage may vary.
See store for details. :)

Remove shoes to E-mail.
 
G

Guest

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

It all depends on how you do the math. Drive manufacturers represent 1GB as
1,000,000,000. Microsoft represents it as 1024x1024x1024, so the drive capacity
using Microsoft's math is always less. Then you have to subtract out the
capacity of the hidden partition put on the drive by Dell (est. 4GB), and the
disk space used up by the file system. Result? 34.4 of Microsoft-math
gigabytes... Ben Myers

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:03:38 GMT, Nate <none@none.none> wrote:

>My Dimension 3000 comes with a 40 GB hard drive. Windows Explorer
>reports Capacity: 34.4 GB.
>
>What's the story on this? Thanks.
>
>
 
G

Guest

Guest
Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:12:20 GMT, "HillBillyBuddhist"
<hillbillybuddhistshoes@gmail.com> wrote:

>Dell includes a hidden partition with diagnostic utilities that account for
>the remaining discrepancy.

Thanks. I see from Computer Management that there are actually two
hidden partitions: one at 2.75 GB and another at 55 MB
 
G

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Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"Nate" <none@none.none> wrote in message
news:f5fs111k1qivn8dejvl43t98t1ln2pbnqh@4ax.com...
| On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 18:12:20 GMT, "HillBillyBuddhist"
| <hillbillybuddhistshoes@gmail.com> wrote:
|
| >Dell includes a hidden partition with diagnostic utilities that account
for
| >the remaining discrepancy.
|
| Thanks. I see from Computer Management that there are actually two
| hidden partitions: one at 2.75 GB and another at 55 MB

Then you also have a restore partition. New for Dells in the last few
months.

--
D

I'm not an MVP a VIP nor do I have ESP.
I was just trying to help.
Please use your own best judgment before implementing any suggestions or
advice herein.
No warranty is expressed or implied.
Your mileage may vary.
See store for details. :)

Remove shoes to E-mail.