Lost space on newly bought 200Gb hitachi

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Lady Insane

ola :)

i just bought a 200Gb hitachi HDD and formatted it. but it shows only 186Gb of memory now. why's that? anyone know how that might happen? did i do something wrong when formatting it? please help!

cheers,
me.
 
That is normal. Because the drive isn't really 200 Gigs.
200 gigabytes = 214 748 364 800 Bytes

If you look at the label or box, it will say that it considers GB to be 1 000 000 000 Bytes
200 000 000 000 Bytes = 186.26 GB

It is because 1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes. But in decimal kilo means 1000. HD Manufacturers use the decimal form to make drives sound bigger than they are.
 
thanks!

oh! ok then! was just that thing abt the OS taking up some space, had heard that from many of my friends. by they were all telling me that it's bit too much compared to what is usually taken up by the OS. so anyway, u sure abt that i see.. so huge thanks! can start using it now, AT LAST :)

cheers again,
me.
 
Example MAXTOR 200GB would be 189GB after you format it to NTFS. There is a tool out there that will low level format the HDD and give you 200GB.
 
tipstir - I don't know how you are going to get 200GB out of that drive unless the manufacturer uses the byte over the decimal version of the number.

I won't dispute your 200GB Maxtor showing up at 189. I have 2 of those drives myself, I don't think HD manufacturers hit 200 right on the nose every time. The DiamondMax hds are roughly 203 928 109 000 bytes in size, which is 199 148 544 kilobytes in size, which is 194 481 megabytes in size, which is the 189.9 gigabyte size.

The unformatted size is 194,481 megs, so I don't think you'll ever get full 200 gigs using the byte version of the numbers. But if you can prove me wrong go ahead.

But in Lady Insane's case, the math works out to EXACTLY what she is seeing. So that is perfectly normal for her.
 
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Well a friend of mine told me that's what he did on his 320GB drives so I'll ask him what's the name of the program he uses? I know when I use the MAXTOR CD Blaster I only get 298GB free on 320GB drive. On MAXTOR 300GB I get 289GB free. MAXTOR 120GB I get 114GB free. MAXTOR 60GB I get 57GB free. As you can see I like MAXTOR drives..:)
 
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you may be able to bypass firmware allocation of spare clusters
but doubtful more like a cheat of some kind what till it overwrites then you'll know
be carefull not to try software that attempts to rewrite gray area of drive
servo data can not should not be messed with
 
thanks again..

that'd be great if i could get the program to maximise the space i can get from the hdd, but i reeeeeally have to make sure that it wont have any "secondary effect" on the disk. coz i'd rather lost 14gb than someday lose the data u know... let me know how come the prgram lets u have more space, k? thank you!! :bounce:
 
How to use the Entired New HDD Space

Got the Friend on the phone, this what told me right now...

Example: 320GB HDD

Steps:
1. WipeDrive (wipes the drives completely)
2. Micro2000 (to wipes/formats all the way to the end of the HDD it)
3. Format under Windows NTFS is going to shows you 320+GB

I have program we use at work called Wipe It just like Wipe Drive, but I haven't tried this myself and the Micro2000 isn't cheap. Friend told me $600 bucks wow!
 
thx for all the trouble :)

hello

thanks for helping me out on this. am gonna try what u proposed, IF i can find those programs, or equivalents. but i got one question... why is it that u gotta use those programs to b able to get access to that maximum of the hd you bought? like y dont u get all the space just by NTFS formatting it with windows? is it occupied by something? any data or whatever?

sorry for the buggin! just curious (=

see yaz
 
All HDDs have some sort of data hidden on the drive uses for other purposes but this could be anywhere from 8MB and higher. SD Flash drives, USB Jumpdrives an etc.. do the samething. 4GB SD Flash is only 3.82GB. So I know if I just use the Wipe IT CD or FD on a HDD it will clear off data only the Micro2000 (Microscope) will format the entire drive give you more that what you would get from Windows or CD HDD maker.

Well you can get opensource (free) Wipe program on sourceforge.net.

Wipe It which I use and so does a lot of companies use this to wipe everything data wise on the HDD before it can leave the company does it zero and bites. Takes while to do. The other Micro2000 Program (which has been around for sometime) does the same wipes but formats the HDD from start to finish which gives you the full access to your new HDD. I don't know of any other program like that, I guess I could dig and find out. Which I alway do anyway! :)
 
"All HDDs have some sort of data hidden on the drive used for other purposes but this could be anywhere from 8MB and higher."

so that sort of hidden data.. what is it about? used for what?

still bugging, i know.. sorry! (=
 
most operating systems store various meta data that cannot be seen at a high level. Windows, for example, can store duplicate copies of the MFT (like an index of the drive) and various other things like security descriptors. If Windows is installed on the drive, there is probably even more hidden data on the drive.

And as someone mentioned before, formatting the drive abnormally to get more space may cause problems down the road


...and welcome to the forum :)
 
Oh yes the MFT Master File Table, but that can be change to any size using Disk Keeper Pro. Very true what you say, but the friend has been doing this for years, I never really hopped on this because not a big deal but the new member to the board ask a question.
 
I wouldn't touch the drive with any of these "tools". I already told you and gave you real numbers to back up the reason you are seeing 186. Look for the fine print on your box, it will tell you what I said.

If you are that concerned about 14 gigs perhaps you should have bought a larger hard drive.

It isn't missing any space, it is exactly the size they told you it was when you bought it. EXACTLY. They just used a different way of getting to that 200 number than you expected, and I outlined how they did it above.
 
hmm

ola wonderful people :)

so, if i'v understood correctly, we'd all agree that formatting the hd using the programs proposed would be part of the "abnormal formatting"? would you agree to that too tipstir? am trying to take everyone's advice into consideration here, coz let's face it, am totally new to what am learning right now (:) thought i'd get my 200gb directly after formatting it :s dumb me, yeah :D

so do we all agree that the safest solution would be leaving the hd to its 18gb capacity? tipstir too?

and SNGX1275, i was trying my veeeery very best not to be bitchy about all this coz i realise i was being totally annoying :p so i apologise if i bugged bit too much :) actually i was just enquiring in detail coz i believe wasting 14gb is quite a lot coz money doesnt come easy around here.. had to wait a lot to get to buy even this 200gb. Hence, wanted to get the maximum out of it :)

fiou, that's a lot i wrote up there. sorry abt that (= thanks you all for helping me out. lovin' the constructive debate (;

gavilan, thanks for the welcome :)

k then, u ppl take care (=
 
But that IS the maximum you are going to get out of it. I've been around computers for quite a while and have never known anyone to be hacking their drive to be larger than it is, except for maybe the drives that were less than 100 megabytes in size 15 years ago.

The fact is your drive is the capacity it is sold as.

If you want to learn of ways to maybe strangle a little more space out of it that is fine. Seriously considering one of those would be foolish without a very good backup plan IMO.

On checking Hitachi's site they only made 1 Deskstar hard drive of 200GB. Datasheet
GB equals one billion bytes when referring to hard drive capacity; accessible capacity may be less.
Click to expand...

Now if we scroll up to the first reply in this thread:
SNGX1275 said:
If you look at the label or box, it will say that it considers GB to be 1 000 000 000 Bytes
200 000 000 000 Bytes = 186.26 GB

It is because 1 kilobyte = 1024 bytes. But in decimal kilo means 1000. HD Manufacturers use the decimal form to make drives sound bigger than they are.
Click to expand...
Advertised 200GB * 1 000 000 000 bytes * (1 kilobyte / 1024 bytes) * (1 megabyte / 1024 kilobytes) * (1 gigabyte (GB) / 1024 megabytes) = 195 312 500 kilobytes = 190 734.86 megabytes = 186.26 gigabytes (GB)

So going by that, and the datasheet, you are actually getting a good deal because your space isn't less than advertised.
 
SNGX1275 got the figures for Hitachi HDDs, so Lady Insane it's really up to you to decided. We can tell you what you wanted to know, which I've done. Again I never use that program to give full access to HDDs and can't recommend it. I know the friend uses MAXTOR drives. Since you have Hitachi then there are limits to what you can have in GB. I'll have the friend do a screen dump of actual drive size and free bytes after using Micro2000. I'll post the image here so all can see when I get though?
 
Okay this is the best I got from the friend.. Not a 250GB more like 30GB after using Micro2000... Hopefully I'll get another HDD image tomorrow which will be the 250GB..

Click on image to make it bigger
 
Do you know what brand/model the drive is? Clicking over to that hardware tab would likely tell.
 
I'll find out specs for you! I am more interested in larger HDDs I want to see how much he's actually getting.
 
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