My 40GB Harddisk shows only 32 GB!?

Question

i have a 40 GB harddisk but the BIOS as well as windows is unable to
show the whole disk space!and it rather shows approx. 33 GB only!So,how
can i make my harddisk to show and work on the 6 to 7 GB disk space

Answer 1

nice tried explanations above, but the most are wrong. your system can't overcome the so called 32GB barrier. With a 40GB disk you should see approx a size of 37.2 GB what can be explained with the above mentioned calculation methods, but the true reason is still the 32GB barrier.

Read the following article "Hard Drive Size Limitations and Barriers"
http://www.dewassoc.com/kbase/hard_drives/hard_drive_size_barriers.htm
to overcome this barrier go to the disk manufacturers website and look for a software tool that can resolve this problem. for example Maxtor has the tool called MaxBlast 4.

Answer 2

MoonlightDancer_72 is correct. Even though there is a difference in Base 2 and Base 10 calculations, if you do the math a 40GB drive should still have 37.25 GB available to the PC.

Because you're stuck at 32GB, you are suffering from a different problem. There are some barriers associated with the BIOS (2GB, 8GB, 32GB were some common ones in the past). If this is an older PC that's more than 5 years old, then that might be your problem and you'll want to update the BIOS if an update exists on the manufacturer's website.

However, it's also possible that you formatted your drive in the FAT32 format using the XP setup disc or from within XP. If so, XP uses a 32GB limitation for that file system. Instead, reformat it using NTFS. That should get you closer to 37GB.


And finally, one last note about what Alias said earlier.....

Although hard drive manufacturers are giving you the "correct" number of bytes using Base 10, there's no question that it's misleading marketing at its best. Since computers work in the binary format (Base 2), all hard drive sizes should also be reported the same way.

Answer 3

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Why is there a discrepancy between the size of my hard disk and the size reported by Windows and DiskView?


"I have a 120 GB hard drive but Windows XP claims it's size is 111.8 GB. What has happened to the other 8.2 GB? "
Hard drive manufacturers calculate hard disk size in 'base 10' notation while Windows does the calculation in 'base 2' (binary) format. Both the manufacturer and Windows are giving you the "correct" number.

1 Gigabyte as defined by a manufacturer is 1,000,000,000,000 Bytes. This makes sense in the metric base 10 sense as we define kilo as 1000, mega as 1,000,000 and giga as 1,000,000,000,000.

Windows, however, calculates the disk size in a base 2 system. Base 2 does not convert into base 10 exactly in most cases but back in the day it was close enough so that a kilobyte was defined as 2^10 or 1024.

2^10 is 1024 is 1 kilobyte
2^20 is 1048576 or 1 megabyte
2^30 is 1073741824 or 1 gigabyte

When the hard disk manufacturer sold you a 120 Gig hard drive, they were selling you 120,000,000,000 bytes. Windows divides this number by what it considers a GB (1073741824) and reports the hard disk size as:

120000000000 (bytes) / 1073741824 (bytes per GB) = 111.8 GB

This accounts for the 'missing' 8.2 GB in the hard disk's size. You still have 120,000,000,000 bytes to use but because of inconsistent definitions of what kilo, mega and giga really represent, there is an inconsistency in the measurement of size.


Read other frequently asked questions in the DiskView FAQ.

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Answer 4

if you really must know

Hard drive manufacturers calculate hard disk size in 'base 10' notation while Windows does the calculation in 'base 2' (binary) format. Both the manufacturer and Windows are giving you the "correct" number.

1 Gigabyte as defined by a manufacturer is 1,000,000,000,000 Bytes. This makes sense in the metric base 10 sense as we define kilo as 1000, mega as 1,000,000 and giga as 1,000,000,000,000.

Windows, however, calculates the disk size in a base 2 system. Base 2 does not convert into base 10 exactly in most cases but back in the day it was close enough so that a kilobyte was defined as 2^10 or 1024.

2^10 is 1024 is 1 kilobyte
2^20 is 1048576 or 1 megabyte
2^30 is 1073741824 or 1 gigabyte

When the hard disk manufacturer sold you a 120 Gig hard drive, they were selling you 120,000,000,000 bytes. Windows divides this number by what it considers a GB (1073741824) and reports the hard disk size as:

120000000000 (bytes) / 1073741824 (bytes per GB) = 111.8 GB

This accounts for the 'missing' 8.2 GB in the hard disk's size. You still have 120,000,000,000 bytes to use but because of inconsistent definitions of what kilo, mega and giga really represent, there is an inconsistency in the measurement of size.

Answer 5

That is correct. It's all in how the math is calculated... the advertising can be a bit misleading.

Advertising: 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes (multiples of 10)
True space: 1 KB = 1024 bytes (multiples of 8)

The larger the advertised size, the larger the discrepancy.

Answer 6

Even if on the label of a hdd it says it can hold up to 40 Gb, that's not the real size! The real sustainable size is with maximum 10% less (in this case 36-37 Gb). This doesn't happen to hdd but also to cd's, dvd's, meemory flash,mmc....

Answer 7

The programs that came with the computer probably take up the 6 to 7 GB space. So it is working, but I don't think that you want to delet all of your programs...

Answer 8

if you bought a PC with preinstalled operating system on it, then around 6-7 GB of diak space is used by the the vendor (like IBM, Dell etc.) to keep some diagnostic and recovery software for scenarios when you need to re-install the OS or to find out a problem.

Answer 9

waht's your bios release date
sometimes oldes bios can not detect newest hdd
or your hdd have a unknown partion
some times your hdd contain bad block and 6-7 gb marked with bad block
what is your hdd brand ?
god to your hdd brand web-site and get hdd utility
you can see real hdd status with this utility
i think 6-7 gb have a non dos /win partion and windows can not report this space
use partion magic utility for more detail
oh compiar bios hdd parameter with phisicall value that printed on hdd body

Answer 10

ur computer is 40 gb but the windows and other necessery files r og some gb thas why it is only 40 gb
if u created another partiion then it shw only like this