Why did dell give me 72gb when i ordered 80gb?

Question

This is including everything.

thanks for some of your answers. I said 72gb because one partition is 62gb and the other is 10gb. It includes all programs, files, and os, etc.

Answer 1

72GB is 80.000 MB because for you to get a 80 GB HDD you have to know that 1GB=1024 MB and that is where your difference is.
For example let's take a 160 GB hdd, the actual size on it is 149 GB there is nothing wrong with is just that 1GB =1024 MB

Ask Dell and you will get the same answer.

This formula is an approximation. Many times they will round the drive size somewhat, but this gives you a rough idea of the real world space.

For Quick Reference:

36gb = 33.5gb

40gb = 37gb

60gb = 55gb

74gb = 69gb

80gb = 74gb

100gb = 93gb

120gb = 112gb

160gb = 149gb

200gb = 186gb

250gb = 233gb

300gb = 279gb

350gb = 326gb

400gb = 372gb

500gb = 465gb

2. The other part is ocupaid by the partitioning software

Answer 2

You got an 80G drive.

When the system/hardware/hard drive manufacturers determine the size of a drive they use the formula 1GB = 1000MB.
When Microsoft software measures the size of a drive the formula is 1GB=1024MB which is actually the correct method.

So you are loosing 24MB per GB. 80(G)24MB=1920MB
80000-1920=78080.

So Windows should report any 80GB hard drive as 78080MB
or 78GB.
Not too bad.

When you measure my (or anyone else's)500GB array
500(G)24MB=12000MB
500000-12000=488GB

NOTE: The values above DO NOT take into account overhead . These are the RAW unformatted values. Once you format a drive you are loosing a portion of the space to the required structures of the format. To make sure you actually got an 80G which you did, right click on the drive in My computer, then click on properties. The drive size should be listed as two sets of numbers. The long string on the left and the G number to the right. The long string will indicate 80,000,000,000 or so.

Answer 3

You did get an 80gb hard drive. It is "80GB" when formatted. It says 72GB because of the operating system and all the additional stuff that dell puts on the hard drive.

Answer 4

You got the 80 GB. Its the difference between a 2^10 gigabyte and a 10^3 gigabyte. If you have a problem with the order, why not speak to Dell?

Answer 5

Most of this space is taken up by two things
System Restore
And
Dell PC Restore

You can reduce the amount of space taken by System Restore.
Right click on My Computer select Properties then System Restore tab


You can remove Dell PC Restore
But unless you have the disks I would NOT recommend it.

Removing Dell PC Restore
NOTICE: Removing Dell PC Restore from the hard drive permanently deletes the PC Restore utility from your
computer. After you have removed Dell PC Restore, you will not be able to use it to restore your computer’s
operating system.
Dell PC Restore enables you to restore your hard drive to the operating state it was in when you
purchased your computer. It is recommended that you do not remove PC Restore from your computer,
even to gain additional hard-drive space. If you remove PC Restore from the hard drive, you cannot ever
recall it, and you will never be able to use PC Restore to return your computer’s operating system to its
original state.
To remove PC Restore:
1 Log on to the computer as a local administrator.
2 In Windows Explorer, go to c:\dell\utilities\DSR.
3 Double-click the filename DSRIRRemv2.exe.
NOTE: If you do not log on as a local administrator, a message appears stating that you must log on as
administrator. Click Quit, and then log on as a local administrator.
NOTE: If the partition for PC Restore does not exist on your computer’s hard drive, a message appears stating
that the partition was not found. Click Quit; there is no partition to delete.
4 Click OK to remove the PC Restore partition on the hard drive.
5 Click Yes when a confirmation message appears.
The PC Restore partition is deleted and the newly available disk space is added to the free space
allocation on the hard drive.
6 Right-click Local Disk (C) in Windows Explorer, click Properties, and verify that the additional disk
space is available as indicated by the increased value for Free Space.
7 Click Finish to close the PC Restore Removal window.
8 Restart the computer.

Hope this helps
Doug

Answer 6

Because the formatting operation of your operating system needs to allocate the disc map, and that process used the rest of the capacity. So the OS can find the files and the segments of files you install.

Answer 7

You loose about 8% usaually, because of formatting, and the fact that they use 1000B=1KB, 1000KB=1MB, and so on instead of what it really should be, 1024. The other 2% is probably from the OS and other stuff.

Wow 7 answers in a minute.

Answer 8

You got an 80Gb hard drive. Part of it is probably being used for a recovery partition, and part of it the operating system reserves.

Answer 9

80GB unformatted, 72GB formatted with OS installed.

Answer 10

its probably 80 but 8 of its taken up by your operating system and other programs installed on your computer already.