Hidden hard drive space???

[ThreeDollarBill]

I have an IBM Deskstar 34GXP hard drive (model DPTA-373420). On the IBM website, the capacity of this drive is listed at 34.21 GB.

I formatted the drive as FAT32 in DOS. When in Windows, the capacity of the drive is listed as 31.5GB. When I saw this I figured that the missing 2.7GB must have been used to store the file allocation tables on the drive.

Then I read a Microsoft article on the benefits of NTFS vs. FAT32. In the article it says that: "You cannot format a volume larger than 32 GB in size using the FAT32 file system in Windows 2000".

So, my question is: Am I being robbed of 2.7GB of space because I am using FAT32? Would I get it back if I switched to NTFS?

Thanks

 

[Willoughbyva]

You could always run fdisk and look at your partitions and see if there is any free space.

I have heard the same thing on the internet about 32 gig drive space limit and FAT32.

I like NTFS because I can create large file sizes and not have to worry about FAT32's limitations.

Good Luck

Will

 

[bacillus]

<< On the IBM website, the capacity of this drive is listed at 34.21 GB. >>


the hdd manufacturers use a slightly different measurement for hd space to how windows calculates it so your real hdd space is going to be less than 34.21Gb for starters. after formatting you'll also "loose" some space.
so the answer to your question is no you're not being robbed!

 

[cleverhandle]

Hmm... here are some numbers:

Windows' "conservative" calculation:
31.5 GB = 31.5 x 1024 MB = 31.5 x 1024 x 1024 KB = 31.5 x 1024^3 bytes
= 33,800,000,000 bytes

which the drive manufacturer might call 33.8 GB in order to make their product sound larger. So, looks like a small amount of waste from formatting. Probably OK, if IBM really does report its capacity that way.

However, with some older drives, the manufacturers shipped them with a jumper set in the back that caused the drive to under-report its capacity, to avoid problems with common BIOS limitations at the time. IIRC, these drives have a group of jumper settings called "32 GB." You might check to make sure the drive is using a normal jumper setting, assuming that your motherboard supports it.

 

[AndyCunningham]

In fact it is actually the manufacturers who are right on this issue.

A kilobyte = 1000 bytes, megabyte = 1000 kb and so on. In fact the term for 2^10 bytes (1024) is something like kibibyte officially. Of course, users refer to the kilobyte as 1024 bytes anyway, but manufacturers are hardly in a rush to lower the apparent capacity of their drives are they?

Remember as well that formatting cuts down on the capacity by a small amount as well, and these two factors add up. My 60GXP apparently has a capacity of 61.49 Gb. Formatted with NTFS, windows tells me the capacity is 57.2 Gb. Hehe, the university computers hard disc space (4.3Gb) is only the same as I lose due to these factors!