HELP - WD 200gb not fully recognizing space

[brucehao]

I can't believe the problems I'm having with these drives. I just received a new 200gb 8mb cache drive from WD to replace a previous one that exhibited the "click."

I created two partitions about 95gb each and formatted them. The first one is fine. The second partition loses 16% of its capacity upon completion of the format. Needless to say, the partition is completely empty, but windows shows that it is only 84% free.

Any fixes would be GREATLY appreciated. I almost wish I didn't decide to purchase this hdd

Thanks in advance...

Irritated and frustrated,
Bruce

 

[ElFenix]

are you running it on the card that came in the box?

 

[SUOrangeman]

First of all, your drive is only 186GB (when using the properly-defined size of 1GB = 1024 MB-per-GB x 1024 KB-per-MB x 1024 B-per-KB). You may have seen this 186GB figure during boot if you have a non-native IDE controller. Drive manufacturers kindly round those 1024's to 1000's, allowing them to advertise larger-than-realized drive sizes.

Secondly, the type of file system you use will also have an impact on the amount of usable space. What are you using?

-SUO

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: SUOrangeman
First of all, your drive is only 186GB (when using the properly-defined size of 1GB = 1024 MB-per-GB x 1024 KB-per-MB x 1024 B-per-KB). You may have seen this 186GB figure during boot if you have a non-native IDE controller. Drive manufacturers kindly round those 1024's to 1000's, allowing them to advertise larger-than-realized drive sizes.

Secondly, the type of file system you use will also have an impact on the amount of usable space. What are you using?

-SUO

no, the SI unit for a gigabyte is 1 billion bytes.

 

[brucehao]

Thanks for the replies.

I was getting a total of 160gb out of 200gb, so there was definitely something wrong.

Also, I'm not using the card they provided because my OS and mobo support the drive as the first one I received recognized a full 186gb.

I talked to a 2nd level tech as well as his supervisor, and they don't know what it is either. So I guess I'm getting another hdd from then. Hopefully, third times the charm.

Thanks again,
Bruce

 

[Viper96720]

Bad sectors maybe? Could it be a mislabled smaller drive actually?

 

[brucehao]

It was really strange because windows would recognize all 186gb. But upon formatting the second partition, it would immediately appear to be 20% used. So upon reformatting, this is what explorer showed:

First partition: 96gb of 96gb free.
Second partition: 68gb of 88gb free.

Weird huh?