[kwack111]

my laptop says it comes with 40GB ATA HD, but when i look in
"my computer" it says by the C drive:

total size: 34.2 GB
free space: 29.8 GB

i'm thinking that from 29.8 till 34.2 is all the programs that's preinstalled,
but what about from 34.2 till 40, where did that go?

 

[jeffarvada]

If on XP:

Right click My Computer --> Manage --> Disk Management.

See if there are other partitions for the drive. Sometimes there's a Recovery Partition so if you screw up your computer you can reload the software from the Recovery Partition.

 

[Crusader Rabbit]

Yep, I would bet on the "recovery partition" thing also. Easier than having to find a restore CD somewhere 2 years later.

 

[sadpanda]

it's marketing lies and math tricks.

80AGB (actual GB) = 80*1024*1024*1024 = 85,899,345,920bytes

80MGB (marketing GB) = 74.5GB*1024*1024*1024 = 79,993,765,888bytes

right click on your 80GB drive and go to properties in explorer, i bet it says 74.5

2^10 = 1024, there's a reason everything in computers is a power of 2, but i won't go there ^_^

 

[CodeWeasel]

I think sadpanda has the right answer for you. Basically to reiterate what he said:

By normall math 1K = 1000

But computers think in Binary which is why everything must to the power of 2. 1024 is the nearest binary number to 1000.

Thus 1 Kb = 1024 bytes

To use my 60 Gb drive as a example

The drive is 59, 962, 290, 176 bytes which one would normally read as 60 Gb. But.......

59,962,290,176 / 1024 / 1024 / 1024 = 55.8 Gb

Thus my 60Gb drive has an actuall capacity of 55.8.

I don't think it's marketing lies, I just think that most people would be confused to tell them that 1Kb = 1024 bytes.

 

[sadpanda]

if that's the case, why not put "55.8" on the box? people won't question if all the boxes say 55.8. but some marketing guy said "we can just say 60 and technically we won't really be lying! we'll just play dumb. and then our drive sounds better than theirs!" and thus everyone did the same.