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    External HDD, missing space?

    Discussion in 'Hardware Components and Aftermarket Upgrades' started by unk3, Dec 24, 2007.

  1. unk3

    unk3 Notebook Consultant

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    I bought a 500gb External HDD and i know its formated so i only get 465GB. I used quite a lot on my media files but it seems some of my space is missing. I've deleted things off my external hdd and i think it did not erase. Anyone know how i can get back that missing space?

    [​IMG]
     
    unk3, Dec 24, 2007
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  2. Soulburner

    Soulburner Notebook Evangelist

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    Nothing is missing...do a little research. This comes up all over the internet literally every single day.

    500 billion bytes in marketing terms is 500,000,000,000. In real life though we measure in powers of 1024. This only equals 488,281,250 Kilobytes, or 476837.158203125 Megabytes, or 465.6612873077392578125 Gigabytes.

    When people say it is space lost due to formatting, they don't know what they are talking about. It is simply powers of 1024.

    Questions? ;)
     
    Soulburner, Dec 24, 2007
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  3. unk3

    unk3 Notebook Consultant

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    that doesnt help me, look on the right, thats all the stuff on my hdd which reads as 265GB used.

    BUT.. on the left, properties of the actual HDD, it says i used 278GB.

    Where did this extra 13GB go?
     
    unk3, Dec 24, 2007
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  4. Hiker

    Hiker Notebook Deity

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    Looking at the screenshot, my guess would be hidden folders.
     
    Hiker, Dec 24, 2007
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  5. Soulburner

    Soulburner Notebook Evangelist

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    Alright it was late and I missed that. I just see so many of "those" threads.

    Do you have hidden folders?
     
    Soulburner, Dec 24, 2007
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  6. unk3

    unk3 Notebook Consultant

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    how do you show the hidden folders?
     
    unk3, Dec 24, 2007
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  7. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

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    This is normal. NTFS reserves some space for directory structure and system protection. If you format a new drive with NTFS, you will notice that some free space has been occupied even though you haven't store anything to the drive. In fact, you will notice this also with FAT32 file system, but the amount of reserved space is much smaller.
     
    hendra, Dec 24, 2007
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  8. unk3

    unk3 Notebook Consultant

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    anyway i can get that memory back?
     
    unk3, Dec 24, 2007
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  9. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

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    If you want to get it back, you need to convert it to FAT32 which reserves less space for file structure but it may not solve the problem. FAT32 uses larger cluster so the benefit of using less space for file structure will be offset by the larger cluster size. I would say just leave it alone.
     
    hendra, Dec 24, 2007
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  10. hendra

    hendra Notebook Virtuoso

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    One thing you can do is to change the cluster size of your current NTFS partition. But in order to do so, you have to reformat your external hard drive in which you need to back up all the data to another hard drive.
     
    hendra, Dec 24, 2007
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  11. camvan

    camvan Notebook Evangelist

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    did you try clearing out your Recycle Bin?
     
    camvan, Dec 25, 2007
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