Where are my 18 GBs???

[yegosimo]

whats up E.T. buddies ?
i have a problem
one day i was wandering around and i decided to install a cd which contained Windows Xp with the SP2 included, so i installed it over my Windows XP system.
the computer works slower, i don't know why but here's the problem
since then, i have installed this:
Programs, games, etc: 5242.08 MB
My Documents: 7249.92 MB
Windows XP SP2 needed: 1843.2 MB
Total: 14341.2 MB
I have a 40 GB hard drive, and so I should have 24775.6 MB left
but the problem is that it says "6768.64 MB left"
where the h@!# are the other 18 GB ???
does it have something to do with the SP2 thing ???

P.S.: recycler is empty, no Temp files, no Internet History...

 

[smcd]

a 40gb drive does not have 40gb. hard drive sizes are misleading, plus some space is used for the file system... are you sure you partitioned it correctly and/or there aren't bad sections on the disk? Might try "Visualising" your used space, http://www.win.tue.nl/sequoiaview/ or if you find that program confusing, http://www.primasoft.com/32org/32disk.htm or http://www.freebyte.com/disktective/ or http://www.rotebetasoftware.com/FolderSize.html might be easier to use

 

[bcrew1375]

You could also try running Chkdsk. Sometimes the space used by deleted files isn't freed properly.

 

[t0rek]

It is true that HDD sizes are misleading, but a 40 Gb HDD should be like 38 Gb or something. Didn't you formatted the drive with the wrong size? Then you will need to make to make a new partition for the free space. I don't think he have the half of the drive full of bad sectors sethmcdoogle....

 

[Doomulation]

To clarify, when you see the size of a HD, the HD makers count each gigabyte as 1000 mb, while it is 1024 mb. Which is also what windows reports.
Also there are some hidden files like your page file. Uncheck hide system files to see these.

 

[Fabricio_EX]

Uh-huh. And it depends on how you installed your OS. Boot using the cd to check if there's unpartitioned space on your HDD, you can create a new partition with the free space (if it's available). I suggest you to format it and create at least 2 partitions (20 GB) to reduce the cluster size, which also makes easier to manage your space and faster if you use the defrag utility (mine has 20 GB divided in 2x10 GB partitions), unless you have files you don't want to throw away (or you don't have a backup).

 

[Trotterwatch]

You checked it isn't being used up by system restore?

/5000th post

 

[Flash]

You checked it isn't being used up by system restore?

Yep, system restore can eat lots of disk space and it's useless in case of serious system crash (it can even make things worse)

5000th post

omg!!! teh uber-phl00der

 

[Martin]

Damn 5000 posts, I need to catch up.

Doom is in the lead though

 

[Doomulation]

Uh-huh. And it depends on how you installed your OS. Boot using the cd to check if there's unpartitioned space on your HDD, you can create a new partition with the free space (if it's available). I suggest you to format it and create at least 2 partitions (20 GB) to reduce the cluster size, which also makes easier to manage your space and faster if you use the defrag utility (mine has 20 GB divided in 2x10 GB partitions), unless you have files you don't want to throw away (or you don't have a backup).

That's not really needed. With NTFS, you can force 512 bytes for a drive of any size. Handy.

 

[BlueFalcon7]

To clarify, when you see the size of a HD, the HD makers count each gigabyte as 1000 mb, while it is 1024 mb. Which is also what windows reports.
Also there are some hidden files like your page file. Uncheck hide system files to see these.

In simple terms, yes, but in more complicated terms, not exactly. If you actually check a drive, and the drive sais that its 40 GB.

Obviously "Giga" is a term for 1 billion. What they dont tell you is that thats the decimal value. Decimal, as in the 10 based number system we all use, where 9 is the "highest" number. There is also a binary value to those terms. The decimal is 10 to a power that is in multiples of 3. For giga, its 10 to the 9th power. For binary values, its 2 to the power of a multiple of 10. so for giga, it would be 2 to the power of 30. When the drive manufacturer makes the drives, if you look at a 40 GB hard drive unformatted, it actually sais that there are 40 billion bytes (it gives you the number with all the zeros.) The drive manufacturer makes it by the decimal value. But when your computer measures kilobytes, megabytes, and gigabytes, it reads the binary value, and thats why drives seem to hold less than what they are marketed to say. So thats where 1024 comes from (2^10.) and these terms are powers of 1024, so a megabyte is 1024^2 (or 2^20)

note: your computer may say differently in the exact number of bytes, because theres a 39 MB partition in all windows formatted drives. I think its for some of the low level info on the drive, that cant be accessed. Theres also about 8 MB of unformatted data, this I dont know exactly what its for. Also, formatting takes up a small % of data.

 

[Doomulation]

To be more precise? A gigabyte is 1024 * 1024 * 1024 (bytes, kilobytes and megabytes). But manufacturers just divide each with 1000, so in their eyes, a gigabyte is 1000 * 1000 * 1000. And it pains me that so many things just cannot agree on a standard. Many use the 1000-philosophy and other the 1024. The correct term is 1024. Because of how computers works, as explained above.

Each partition also contains a small amount of space reserved for MFT (Master File Table) on NTFS or FAT on FAT-systems. And, of course, other things needed by the OS to correctly use the drives. Or partitions.

 

[BlueFalcon7]

are CPU cycles measured in binary or decimal? I have always wondered.

 

[Flash]

To be more precise? A gigabyte is 1024 * 1024 * 1024 (bytes, kilobytes and megabytes). But manufacturers just divide each with 1000, so in their eyes, a gigabyte is 1000 * 1000 * 1000. And it pains me that so many things just cannot agree on a standard.

And it's not that easy. If you buy three different 120Gb drives you can get different real sizes -
112Gb, 114Gb, 117Gb or something like that.

Also DVD-R discs marked as 4.7GB, decimal bytes again.
Cheaters...

 

[Doomulation]

Some manufacturers also "reserve" space in case of surface damage, or what to call it. Errors that causes part of the HD to become unreadable, detectable by scandisk or chkdsk. Thus that space in unreachable, normally.

To further this issue even more, in many places, they also cheat by spelling bits as "b," which also refers to "byte." So gb can mean GigaBYTE or GigaBIT. That's the case of SATA disks. Theoretical maximum of 3 gb/s. Gigabyte? Hardly. GigaBITS. Watch out for these tricks.

 

[t0rek]

How many times we discussed this issue in the past? anyway I wonder if the guy solved his problem

 

[smcd]

are CPU cycles measured in binary or decimal? I have always wondered.

A cycle is a cycle is a cycle (also known as a clock). I've seen numbers over 0 or 1 so it can't be "measured in binary" (some instructions take 2, 3, or more cycles to complete)

 

[Toasty]

I think what he means is:

Does a MHz stand for 1000^2 Hz or 1024^2 Hz? and
Does a GHz stand for 1000^3 Hz or 1024^3 Hz?

I'm pretty sure the powers of 1000 are always used in cycle unit measurements.

 

[bcrew1375]

Some manufacturers also "reserve" space in case of surface damage, or what to call it. Errors that causes part of the HD to become unreadable, detectable by scandisk or chkdsk. Thus that space in unreachable, normally.

To further this issue even more, in many places, they also cheat by spelling bits as "b," which also refers to "byte." So gb can mean GigaBYTE or GigaBIT. That's the case of SATA disks. Theoretical maximum of 3 gb/s. Gigabyte? Hardly. GigaBITS. Watch out for these tricks.

Usually, the size of the "b" determines whether it is byte or bit. Small is bit, Capitalized is byte. So, 3 gb/s actually would be gigabit, 3 GB/s would be gigabyte.

 

[BlueFalcon7]

Usually, the size of the "b" determines whether it is byte or bit. Small is bit, Capitalized is byte. So, 3 gb/s actually would be gigabit, 3 GB/s would be gigabyte.

Yes, I learned that a while ago with internet speeds. I once told a guy that my internet was 3 MB/s when its really 3Mb/s. capital B refers to bytes, as in 8 bits. lowercase b refers to bits. Also made me really angry with 56kb/s, which is 7kB/s. But im glad that I dont have dialup anymore. when measuring bus speeds, such as internet, SATA, USB, FireWire, etc are always measured in bits per second. SATA is 3Gb/s, or 400MB/s. Its simple math. When bus speeds are measured in MHz, does it also Mb/s? Because wireless signals are 2.4 GHz, which have a potential of 300 MB/s. So when measuring RAM speed, is the MHz the speed, or the potential speed, but a speed that it doesnt reach.