new slave showing incorrect volume...help?!

L0G1c · 04-30-2006, 06:39 AM

I just purchased and installed (formatted, partitioned, assigned drive letter, etc) a new 160gb Seagate hard drive, set up as a slave. In my computer it shows up as 149gb with 148gb free. What the...? Where did 11 gigs of disk space disappear to on a brand new drive???

Any help greatly appreciated.

**hwm54112** · 04-30-2006, 08:41 AM

It is literally "lost in translation". Hard drive manufacturers define a gig as 1,000,000,000 bytes while most computer operating systems consider 1,073,741,824 bytes to be a gig. Actual drive capacities have always been smaller than stated for various reasons it just isn't as noticable on small drives. 73,741,824 bytes missing from a one gig drive isn't that much but multiply it by 160, as in your case, and it shows up as a big loss. Your missing gigs are normal.

L0G1c · 04-30-2006, 03:21 PM

Can I actually fit more than windows states on the drive?

**hwm54112** · 04-30-2006, 05:55 PM

No. The absolute drive capacity doesn't change, only the unit of measure. The manufacturer's use an accepted, though incorrect definition of a gig to state drive capacity, while Windows uses the technically correct definition of a gig. Your drive will hold 149 gigs because windows measures it as 149 gigs, regardless of how the manufacturer measures it.

04-30-2006, 06:39 AM	#1 (permalink)
L0G1c Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 40 OS: XP SP2	new slave showing incorrect volume...help?! I just purchased and installed (formatted, partitioned, assigned drive letter, etc) a new 160gb Seagate hard drive, set up as a slave. In my computer it shows up as 149gb with 148gb free. What the...? Where did 11 gigs of disk space disappear to on a brand new drive??? Any help greatly appreciated.

04-30-2006, 08:41 AM	#2 (permalink)
hwm54112 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,233 OS: WINXP	It is literally "lost in translation". Hard drive manufacturers define a gig as 1,000,000,000 bytes while most computer operating systems consider 1,073,741,824 bytes to be a gig. Actual drive capacities have always been smaller than stated for various reasons it just isn't as noticable on small drives. 73,741,824 bytes missing from a one gig drive isn't that much but multiply it by 160, as in your case, and it shows up as a big loss. Your missing gigs are normal.

04-30-2006, 03:21 PM	#3 (permalink)
L0G1c Registered User Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 40 OS: XP SP2	Can I actually fit more than windows states on the drive?

04-30-2006, 05:55 PM	#4 (permalink)
hwm54112 TSF Enthusiast Join Date: Oct 2005 Posts: 2,233 OS: WINXP	No. The absolute drive capacity doesn't change, only the unit of measure. The manufacturer's use an accepted, though incorrect definition of a gig to state drive capacity, while Windows uses the technically correct definition of a gig. Your drive will hold 149 gigs because windows measures it as 149 gigs, regardless of how the manufacturer measures it.