Help: HDD capacity

  • Thread starter Thread starter Wiseman
  • Start date Start date
W

Wiseman

Hi,

I've got a seagate 80 gb drive that shows a capacity of only 76317 megabytes
when booting (74.53 Gbytes thrugh disk/drive manager) but if I go to the
device manager / Silicon Image / Drive info it says: drive capacity 80026
mbytes ! Can please anybody tell me where the 3709 mbytes have gone and how
to recover them ?

Wiseman
 
Wiseman said:
Hi,

I've got a seagate 80 gb drive that shows a capacity of only 76317
megabytes when booting (74.53 Gbytes thrugh disk/drive manager) but if I
go to the device manager / Silicon Image / Drive info it says: drive
capacity 80026 mbytes ! Can please anybody tell me where the 3709 mbytes
have gone and how to recover them ?

Wiseman
Click to expand...
Its to do with marketing. Drive makers use 1000 kilobytes=1 megabyte whereas
it it really is 1024 kilobytes=1 megabyte. Add that to the overheads of
formatting the drive and thats where your space has gone!
And no, you can't get it back, it's the same on all drives.
My 80Gb drive shows the same figure and my 300Gb drive has 279 and bit meg
available.

SteveH
 
Those numbers are correct. The UNformatted capacity of your harddrive is
the 80026 MB. But after the harddrive is Formatted for use the Formatted
capacity is the 76317 MB. The lost MB's are in use for formatting and not
recoverable.
 
DaveW said:
The UNformatted capacity of your harddrive is the
80026 MB. But after the harddrive is Formatted
for use the Formatted capacity is the 76317 MB.
The lost MB's are in use for formatting and not
recoverable.
Click to expand...

How long has it been since unformatted hard drives
were last sold?

"Giga" can mean either 10^9 or 2^30, just as
"mega" can mean either 10^6 or 2^20.
 
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message
How long has it been since unformatted hard drives
were last sold?
Click to expand...
Well who sells preformatted HDDs?
Or are you being pedantic and talking about low level formatting?
Every drive I've bought (hundreds) in the last ten years has had to be
formatted before an o/s could be installed.

SteveH
 
SteveH said:
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message

Well who sells preformatted HDDs?
Or are you being pedantic and talking about low level formatting?
Every drive I've bought (hundreds) in the last ten years has had to be
formatted before an o/s could be installed.

SteveH
Click to expand...

I always format them but maybe i'm a mug, because i've heard that they
come formatted!!

I partition anyway.

I was speaking to somebody that said he had installing windows down to
a fine art. super fast He said he buys the drive, it's preformatted -
all are nowadays - apparently. He runs the setup off one drive
installing windows to the other drive. So, whether he meant you can
skip where the setup asks to format or whether he meant that windows
doesn't ask you. I don't know.
Or he connects the drive to another comp, puts the winxp setup files on
it. isntalls win xp from that drive. (I guess he must then use a boot
disk, must be preformatted as fat32 to be able to run setup from dos)
Seems unlikely.
 
I was speaking to somebody that said he had installing windows down to
a fine art. super fast
Click to expand...

For it to be super-fast, it has to be files on a FAT/FAT32
partition. Semi-fast would be installation over a Gigibit
lan. Using a CD for anything is dead slow, there is no art
that makes it relatively fast.
He said he buys the drive, it's preformatted -
all are nowadays - apparently. He runs the setup off one drive
installing windows to the other drive.
Click to expand...

But then to get a few seconds time shaved off, one ends up
with an OS that expands over the entire partition, which
increases seek times and reduces throughput. The optimal
arrangement for an OS partition is only a little larger than
it could ever possibly need be, which in the case of XP, is
almost always well under 20GB, usually under 10GB but then
some mammoth sized games want to install over a 1GB per on
the C: parition so some allowance must be made if/when the
scenario is possible.

So, whether he meant you can
skip where the setup asks to format or whether he meant that windows
doesn't ask you. I don't know.
Or he connects the drive to another comp, puts the winxp setup files on
it. isntalls win xp from that drive. (I guess he must then use a boot
disk, must be preformatted as fat32 to be able to run setup from dos)
Seems unlikely.
Click to expand...

The easiest method is probably to use a thumbdrive. Format
it as a bootable DOS, FAT32 partition that loads smartdrive.
Plop the windows CD contents (at least the I386 folder) onto
it too, then set the board bios to boot to it. Easier and
more reliable than fiddling with floppies, quicker than CDs,
but still a little slower than a pre-prepped HDD with the OS
files on a 2nd FAT32 partition.
 
kony said:
For it to be super-fast, it has to be files on a FAT/FAT32
partition. Semi-fast would be installation over a Gigibit
lan. Using a CD for anything is dead slow, there is no art
that makes it relatively fast.


But then to get a few seconds time shaved off, one ends up
with an OS that expands over the entire partition, which
increases seek times and reduces throughput. The optimal
arrangement for an OS partition is only a little larger than
it could ever possibly need be, which in the case of XP, is
almost always well under 20GB, usually under 10GB but then
some mammoth sized games want to install over a 1GB per on
the C: parition so some allowance must be made if/when the
scenario is possible.



The easiest method is probably to use a thumbdrive. Format
it as a bootable DOS, FAT32 partition that loads smartdrive.
Plop the windows CD contents (at least the I386 folder) onto
it too, then set the board bios to boot to it. Easier and
more reliable than fiddling with floppies, quicker than CDs,
but still a little slower than a pre-prepped HDD with the OS
files on a 2nd FAT32 partition.
Click to expand...

I don't have acomp available to me to try it out. And I tend not to be
lucky enough to get MOBOs that boot off USB.

But

Suppose I use the pre-prepped HDD.
So, you're saying 1 HDD, 2 partitions. 1 NTFS, 1 FAT32.

Is the NTFS the primary, and the FAT32 the Active Extended?

Hopefully DOS can boot off an Extended partition.

So. DOS will call the Extended as C (it won't see NTFS). Then windows
setup would see the primary NTFS give it some drive letter (C? D?).

And after installing windows I'd make the NTFS partition active?

I'm prob wrong. I haven't got a comp at hand to experiment on. But I
know these are issues.

thanks
 
I don't have acomp available to me to try it out. And I tend not to be
lucky enough to get MOBOs that boot off USB.
Click to expand...

It is hit-or-miss on older boards, less and less common the
further back one goes.

But

Suppose I use the pre-prepped HDD.
So, you're saying 1 HDD, 2 partitions. 1 NTFS, 1 FAT32.
Click to expand...

I'm suggesting a limited size first partition for the OS.
Then it's necessary for the source of the OS files, if
installed from DOS, to be on a FAT/FAT32 partition.

Beyond that, some have legitimate need for NTFS for OS, but
others for FAT32... and some just accept the defaults
without really thinking about it. May cite performance
differences that are minor but more important would be
security vs ability to access from alternate OS that don't
support NTFS.

It need not that the OS files are on a 2nd partition on same
drive though, as in the case of the thumbdrive, or on a 2nd
HDD, or network, still it's useful to have the 1st partition
constrained in size instead of taking up entire capacity of
today's mammoth-sized HDDs.

Is the NTFS the primary, and the FAT32 the Active Extended?
Click to expand...

Easiest would probably be to just make 2 FAT32 partitions,
the first being active/bootable, the 2nd having the OS
installation files. Or, boot a floppy, thumbdrive,
whatever, if you don't want to use the HDD manufacturer's
utility to format the primary partition which is faster than
DOS. It just depends on how you want to boot the box that
first time before the windows installer takes over, then it
will make the first partition NTFS if you want NTFS.
Hopefully DOS can boot off an Extended partition.
Click to expand...

You don't need to. Define how you want to boot then what it
takes to do it.

So. DOS will call the Extended as C (it won't see NTFS). Then windows
setup would see the primary NTFS give it some drive letter (C? D?).
Click to expand...

Windows installer will let yo pick the partition and
filesystem, you don't need to try to format the first
partition as NTFS ahead of time.

And after installing windows I'd make the NTFS partition active?
Click to expand...

Windows installer will take care of this. The main
differences are just to use a faster access method for
installation than CDROM, and have a limited size OS
partition. How you work out the rest is subject to what
works best for you or the system owner or whoever.
 
SteveH said:
(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message

Well who sells preformatted HDDs?
Click to expand...

Everybody, usually with 512 byte sectors.
Or are you being pedantic and talking about low
level formatting?
Click to expand...

You're being pedantic yourself about this because
the unformatted verses formatted capacity is
determined by the low level formatting.
 
X-No-Archive: yes
X-No-Google-Store: yes

I always format them but maybe i'm a mug, because i've heard that they
come formatted!!
Click to expand...

They are formatted and not formatted :-)

Actually all the sectors are already there in the hard disk when you
buy it - the manufacturer has done a low level format.

When you 'format' you just do nothing other than write the system area
for the partition you created using FDISK. The system area comprises
the FAT and Directory sections.

The FORMAT program actually never writes anything to the data area -
it just checks that all the sectors are good and then after the check
writes the system area - in this process if it find bad sectors, it
marks them so. (Actually if every disk was to have only one partition
and there was only one OS then all hard disks will be sold
pre-formatted with the system areas)

Another thing, whether you use Windows98 or XP or Linux that basic
sector structure in the hard disk is same - that is how you can remove
Linux and install Win98 or XP.

You can check the veracity of this, that format does not write
anything to the disk until after it has verified all the sectors, by
giving the format command and abort it (switch off computer) midway -
the contents of the hard disk will be there as they were before.

If I know that a disk has no errors then I always use the FORMAT /Q
command which does away with the sector checking.

In fact I do not use FORMAT command - I always that magnificent tool
by Mikhail Ranish, part.exe. It is very fast and saves you time.

HTH


--
Sandy Archer
Reply to newsgroup only

For links to Harddisk management freeware
http:/members.tripod.com/~diligent/harddisk.htm
 
Ardent said:
X-No-Archive: yes
X-No-Google-Store: yes



They are formatted and not formatted :-)

Actually all the sectors are already there in the hard disk when you
buy it - the manufacturer has done a low level format.

When you 'format' you just do nothing other than write the system area
for the partition you created using FDISK. The system area comprises
the FAT and Directory sections.

The FORMAT program actually never writes anything to the data area -
it just checks that all the sectors are good and then after the check
writes the system area - in this process if it find bad sectors, it
marks them so. (Actually if every disk was to have only one partition
and there was only one OS then all hard disks will be sold
pre-formatted with the system areas)

Another thing, whether you use Windows98 or XP or Linux that basic
sector structure in the hard disk is same - that is how you can remove
Linux and install Win98 or XP.

You can check the veracity of this, that format does not write
anything to the disk until after it has verified all the sectors, by
giving the format command and abort it (switch off computer) midway -
the contents of the hard disk will be there as they were before.

If I know that a disk has no errors then I always use the FORMAT /Q
command which does away with the sector checking.

In fact I do not use FORMAT command - I always that magnificent tool
by Mikhail Ranish, part.exe. It is very fast and saves you time.

HTH


--
Sandy Archer
Reply to newsgroup only

For links to Harddisk management freeware
http:/members.tripod.com/~diligent/harddisk.htm
Click to expand...

great info and link. very helpful - It's unfortunate that you don't
want your posts archived by google!!!!
 
Back
Top