I noticed that you never get full capacity. For example, a 20 GB hard drive will actually have 19.5 GB or something like that. Now I don't really mind a few missing spaces but I recently bought a Western Digital 250 GB drive which only had 232 GB.
2006-12-06 10:18:21 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Hardware ➔ Add-ons
I had the same problem with my Dell so I emailed them and this is what I got back. Basically it says nothing interesting but its an exact copy of their reply.
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Most operating systems define a hard disk drive's capacity using binary or base-2 mathematics. This translates to 1 gigabyte (GB) equal to 1,073,741,824 bytes. This is the correct value when using binary or base-2 mathematics.
However, hard disk drive manufacturers define drive sizes using base-10 mathematics, in which 1 GB is equal to 1,000,000,000 bytes (rather than the 1,073,741,824 bytes, as listed above).
This discrepancy in reporting drive sizes (base-2 vs. base-10) may lead you to believe that you have a hard disk drive of less than expected capacity if you compare the figure reported by the operating system with the figure reported by your documentation, although the actual hard drive size is identical. Microsoft Windows counts the size differently, and will report a different, slightly smaller, figure.
Base10 - 40GB
Base2 - 38.1GB
Base10 - 80GB
Base2 - 76.2GB
Base10 - 100GB
Base2 - 95.3GB
Base10 - 120GB
Base2 - 114.4GB
Base10 - 160GB
Base2 - 152.5GB
Base10 - 200GB
Base2 - 190.7GB
2006-12-06 12:14:41 · answer #1 · answered by dude605 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because hard drive manufactures measure hard drive capacity in units of 1000, 1000 bytes to the kilobyte, but computer operating systems consider a kilobyte to be 1024 bytes.
2006-12-06 10:42:53 · answer #2 · answered by Christopher J 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
well.. it is cuz the windows must take some clusters (small parts from the size of the hard disk) so it can know what is that for.. and it store on it some info.. if you notice when you first put it.. it is like ur pc is trying to recognize that.. so how do u think that he know that your hard disk is for example Toshiba.. or anything else.. the company who made it .. put some info. on it.. and this info you can't see it .. and you can't delete it.. plus what i said in the first .. the windows must take a lil size of it .. or should i say a Ratio... anyway ... you can notice that on the memory sticks that comes with the phone (mobile)
2006-12-06 10:36:46 · answer #3 · answered by EnD_LoVe 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It appears like you want to replace you motherboads bios examine the producer's cyber web web site to get the replace. in common words flash the bios as a very last motel. in case you get the incorrect one this can effect in a finished lack of use on your motherboard failing that bypass for your HDD producer's cyber web web site and receive a peice of application that ought to slove this problem. some HDD producer's call this a Dynamic rigidity Overlay basicly it tells the bios one fee and then once you've loaded abode windows it tells abode windows the quite length of the puzzling disk
2016-11-24 19:43:31 · answer #4 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because the computer never counts the space taken up by system files.
2006-12-06 10:37:08 · answer #5 · answered by kum-Bucket69 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The reason is that the company can't make a hard disk an exact size.
2006-12-06 10:23:07 · answer #6 · answered by Dennis L 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋