I installed a WD EIDE HD 250GB into my second pc, copied all the files from old 19g hd onto it (XP sp2, 512MB, IBM Aptiva) After all was done it said i only had 232GB capacity. Why did i not have the full 250GB? Someone clear this up for me? Thanks.
The formatted version of the drive is always less than the stated one. I believe that its based that 1024 mb is one gb yet theoretically its suppose to be 1000.
That is true but it's not the reason why he's missing 18GB. What actually happens is that the data for the file allocation table (FAT) for a drive requires approximately 7% of the drive's area, in this case 17-18GB, leaving him with 232GB. All hard disks do this. 40s become 37, 80s become 74, 120s become 112, 160s become 149, 200s become 186, 250s become 232, 320s become 298 etc. The 1024 and 1000 thing is because of the different terms used for memory. 1024MB is actually what you get when you ask for 1024MB of memory for example, but with data storage, a "MEGABYTE" is 1,000,000 bytes. All too often however, for the sake of simplicity (just doubling, since computers work in binary) they just double numbers to get roughly a million, forming what is technically known as a "MEBIBYTE" (Binary Megabyte) of 1,048,576 bytes. This is why in POST messages on the memory check you see for example "524288K OK" because you've got 512 Mebibytes, not technically Megabytes!
Hehe, that's why we're here! I've learnt more about computers from aD and DVDHounds probably than anywhere else. Forums are a very powerful learning tool.
That's alright, any time. Hope I didn't confuse you or anything. Sometimes I go into just a little too much detail!
