Compaq f557us hard drive question

[elpibebz]

first of all, srry if this doesnt go in this section


i've been having this issue since i bought this laptop. the total hard drive space is of 100gb. it has a section of it reserved for recovery files (drive D).
the thing is, when i open my computer (btw, running on vista), it says:

Local Disk ( C: ) 66.0 GB free of 86.9 GB

Presario RP ( D: ) 779 MB free of 6.17

that would add up to around 93 GB if they were completely free, thus im assuming the other 7 are taking up by the windows. thing is, if i go to remove programs, it says i have 3 GB worth of software in my pc, which would leave 69 GB free, and since i bought this pc, i've only seen up to 72 GB free. Not to mention that the free space gradually decreases, dont know why, maybe updates..


i know its not really a big deal since i only use it for school, but its the fact that something's wrong with it and i dont know why.

 

[Tedster]

have you run a virus scan?

 

[elpibebz]

yeah, i have scans, defragmenter and cleanup running daily.

 

[lamo]

you laptop may be has a recovery partition. it's size can be up to 7 GB.
HDD manufacturers print decimal capacity of the HDD on the top cover label, however, windows XP measures binary capacity of your HDD thus, actual HDD size usually smaller than printed on the HDD top cover

 

[elpibebz]

i see.

thank u lamo :grinthumb

 

[aspirulito]

the answer is that Hard Drive manufacturers take one Mb to be = 1000 Kb, while in computer language ( as computers see it) 1 Mb = 1024 Kb. That will account for your lost 7 Gbs of space.