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    7GB missing from 100GB HD

    Discussion in 'Dell' started by MrWacko, Jul 10, 2006.

  1. MrWacko

    MrWacko Notebook Guru

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    I just recieved my brand new M1210. It's specs are in my sig, but basically 7 gigs of a 100GB 7200RPM HD don't show in Windows, OR the WinXP setup partition screen. I know Dell has the system restore stuff, but shouldn't the space show up on the partitioning area as a third partition?
     
    MrWacko, Jul 10, 2006
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  2. Alcyon

    Alcyon Notebook Consultant

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    a GB on paper isn't exactly a GB once formatted.
    Take the 74GB Raptor drive, it's actually 69.23 GB.
    So your 100GB drive will come out to about 93.5 GB.

    i forget the whole hi-tech explanation about 1024MB in a GB, blah blah blah.
    Someone help me out here.
     
    Alcyon, Jul 10, 2006
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  3. MrWacko

    MrWacko Notebook Guru

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    I know that. It's in powers of two. 1024 = 2 to the 10th power.

    I just didn't know that approximatly 5% - 10% of a drive's actual space isn't usable...
     
    MrWacko, Jul 10, 2006
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  4. Syndrome

    Syndrome Torque Matters

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    My 60gig drive is missing 10 gig, so 7 out 100 isn't to bad..
     
    Syndrome, Jul 10, 2006
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  5. mantheorem

    mantheorem Notebook Enthusiast

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    To figure out if this is an issue with the BIOS or WinXP, it may be useful to download a Linux LiveCD and use the Fdisk command to see all the parititions.

    Knoppix is the most popular livecd: http://www.knoppix.net/

    Type in fdisk once the CD boots and follow the instructions from there. A google search on the "fdisk" command may help.
     
    mantheorem, Jul 10, 2006
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  6. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    Where did you view the partitioning area? It should show up in Disk Management, but I won't swear to it.

    You should have anywhere from 2 to 4 partitions. XPS is weird so that is why I'm putting a range on it.
     
    Amber, Jul 10, 2006
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  7. sample

    sample Notebook Consultant

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    mine hd is 100gb but i only have 88gb :( unless i have hidden partitions
     
    sample, Jul 10, 2006
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  8. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    Yes, you have hidden partitions. All of the Inspirons have at least 3 possibly 4 partitions. Check out the format guide (link in sig) and it will give informat on each of the partition.
     
    Amber, Jul 10, 2006
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  9. WeelyTM

    WeelyTM Notebook Consultant

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    you lose 7% of what the drive really is. like it was said above, they define a gigabyte as 1 billion bytes on the box, but a real gigabyte is 2^30 bytes = 1,073,741,824 bytes since memory uses base 2 mathematics. you are essentially gyped out of 70.3 megabytes for every 1 pseudo-gigabyte these days. manufacturers are liars, nothing you can do. also note that you lose about 8 MB for a windows xp installation for the allocation table and system info.
     
    WeelyTM, Jul 10, 2006
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  10. xAMDvsIntelx

    xAMDvsIntelx Notebook Deity

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    Wikipedia gives a pretty good explaination of the difference between the two measurements of a GB here for those who don't know/understand.
     
    xAMDvsIntelx, Jul 11, 2006
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  11. Daetlus

    Daetlus Notebook Consultant

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    that 93 gigs you have is actually 97.5gigs in the sense that you are thinking about it 93*1024*1024/1000/1000=97.517568 I would assume the rest is in hidden partitions for system recovery and or that bootless media play option
     
    Daetlus, Jul 18, 2006
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  12. jeffmd

    jeffmd Notebook Evangelist

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    Actually, most of my newer drives when I tell it to partition the drive for one partition of max space, 8 megs of it remained unpartitioned. It actually shows up under fdisk as unpartitioned space. Any one know whats up with that?
     
    jeffmd, Jul 18, 2006
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  13. Amber

    Amber Notebook Prophet NBR Reviewer

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    8mb is filler space that XP uses. There really isn't anything that you can do with that, and it is best to just leave it there.
     
    Amber, Jul 18, 2006
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