160G harddrive only showing 149G

by chuckieu Nov 26, 2004 3:57AM PST

Tried finding subject on web. No luck. Tried the search feature here, but it seems to be down. Anyway, here goes. Just bought a 160G Samsung HDD to replace a Maxtor 40G.
Originally, I was going to add a 120G drive to the 40G, not replace it. Since I wasn't going over 137G, I wasn't paying attention when this subject was discussed. LBA is supported and turned on in my BIOS. Obviously, or I wouldn't be getting over 137G. My trouble is Windows 98se is only seeing 149G, not the whole 160G. Linux will, but that doesn't help, it is on the other drive. I was able to Fdisk using percentages. 25% gets me 37.2G rather than the desired 40G(less overhead) and 75% gets me 111.7 rather than 120G.
Samsung site doesn't mention it. I have seen this addressed in the past, but I didn't think I needed it. My fault. Won't be changing to XP for a little while, so any thoughts on the problem would be appreciated.
Windows 98se
AMD XP3000+
256MB 2700
Samsung 160G+20G Seagate
TIA chuck

Discussion is locked

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160 BILLION is 149G

by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Nov 26, 2004 4:09AM PST

Let's try the numbers.

Remember that drive makers give you 1 billion bytes to their GB. So...

160,000,000,000 times 0.9313226 = 149.0116119 Gigabyte (GB)

Seems spot on.

Bob

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Re: 160 BILLION is 149G

by chuckieu Nov 26, 2004 4:54AM PST

Sorry, Bob. Meant to put that in my post. Possible it is
the old "Claimed vs. Real" issue. But as I mentioned Mandrake(and Knoppix) see the whole 160.029G disc. I searched and came up with info that it really is a 160G size. I expected less. I remember(vaguely) seeing the specific 149G size problem somewhere in the past. chuck

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So is this an unreal claim.

by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Nov 26, 2004 4:57AM PST

Or is there really turkey for the next few months if it sees its own shadow?

Bob

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Re: So is this an unreal claim.

by chuckieu Nov 26, 2004 7:57PM PST

Remembered after logging off. Originally went with one partition, Windows saw HDD as 152+G. And I noted twice that Linux sees complete drive. I AM aware claimed size is often inaccurate. ACTUAL size of drive by all available info is reported to be 160G. Done my research, Bob. I'm asking about a specific problem. Thanks anyway.
chuck

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Each tool may report a different number.

by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Nov 26, 2004 11:07PM PST

The drive is still 160 billion bytes. That is the only fact we can start with.

After this, Explorer, Linux and each application may report in BINARY BYTES i.e. 1024 bytes for each KB and so on.

As such, the owners of such are promptly asking what size is that drive.

Bob

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Re: Each tool may report a different number.

by chuckieu Nov 27, 2004 12:34AM PST

Sorry, Bob. Finally got it straightened out. Don't know why Windows originally reported in Binary instead of Windows Output. Anyway, other than "the bigger the better", I don't care what size it is. Although, like everybody else, if I buy a 160G hard drive, I REALLY want a 160G hard drive. Now I need to reseach non-destructive re-partitioning. I want a 120G partition for Graphics/Photos(DVDs) and the rest for OS(98se-thenXP).Hate to pay $80 for Partition Magic for 1 time use. Thanks for the help. chuck

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Partitioning is your choice.

by r. proffitt Former Forum moderator Nov 27, 2004 12:42AM PST

But I found zero payoff when I tried that on NTFS partitions. So with video editing I just made the new 300GB drive one big partition and it works super.

To keep things tidy I use DIRECTORIES.

Bob

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Re: Partitioning is your choice.

by chuckieu Nov 28, 2004 4:10AM PST

I can re-format if necessary in C: without losing grapics files in D:. Has happened before. Among other things,
hardware update finished. New-CPU(XP3000+), HDD(160 Samsung), Video(ATI9850-all I need right now), and another 256mb stick of pc2700 on the way from Crucial. So Windows XP in near furure, so reformat would be in order. But I'll hold off repartitoning since RMAed 40G Maxtor for Linux due any day.Just redo everything then. Thanks again for the help.

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Don't forget overhead. . .

by Coryphaeus Nov 28, 2004 9:33AM PST

All digital media/medium has overhead. Bits/Bytes that are not accessible to you. A formatted and partitioned drive will loose available data. Some simple examples:

Floppy - advertized 1.44 Meg. Actual 1.36 Meg.
T-1 - advertised 1.544 Mb/s. Actual 1.536 Meg.
ISDN - advertised 160 Kb/s. Actual 128 Kb/s.

Your 160 Gig HD will not give you 160 Gig of available space. After formatting with even one partition you'll likely get 155 Gig available.

Hope this helps,

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160G harddrive only showing 149G

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