Why am i missing 3 gigabytes of free space?

[EricB]

ugh, something to do with the binary convestion that ms uses....

you lost a certain amount of bytes for each meg or something like that in the conversion it uses.

also, isn't it really bytes tha's advertised?
like it's actually 19million bytes?
ugh, i can't think right today....crip, i coudn't even think what the "S" stood for in SDRAM this morning in my lab......:tard:

i learned the hard drive thing last week in my hardware class...but...go figure i can't remeber it today

20 gig = 18.6 gig

 

[EricB]

ugh, something to do with the binary convestion that ms uses....

you lost a certain amount of bytes for each meg or something like that in the conversion it uses.

also, isn't it really bytes tha's advertised?
like it's actually 19million bytes?
ugh, i can't think right today....crip, i coudn't even think what the "S" stood for in SDRAM this morning in my lab......:tard:

i learned the hard drive thing last week in my hardware class...but...go figure i can't remeber it today

20 gig = 18.6 gig. he is still missing space. most of the time that space is taken up by the restore point.

 

[dnoch]

ugh, something to do with the binary convestion that ms uses....

you lost a certain amount of bytes for each meg or something like that in the conversion it uses.

also, isn't it really bytes tha's advertised?
like it's actually 19million bytes?
ugh, i can't think right today....crip, i coudn't even think what the "S" stood for in SDRAM this morning in my lab......:tard:

i learned the hard drive thing last week in my hardware class...but...go figure i can't remeber it today

Ya, ms does not calculate space propelly. You start with 1 bit (1 binary digit), 8 bit's make 1 byte, 1024 byte's make a kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes make a megabyte, 1024 megabytes make a gigabyte.
Windows multiplies it by 1000 (therein forgetting the 24 in every calculation).
Also, the format of your hard drive (most probably FAT32) means that you drive is divided into sectors consisting of 32 bits. Only one type of data is allowed to be in one sector, therefore, a lot of your hard drive goes to waste, because it has saved a file, and there is still most of a sector free, but it cannot be used for any other file.

 

[EricB]

Ya, ms does not calculate space propelly. You start with 1 bit (1 binary digit), 8 bit's make 1 byte, 1024 byte's make a kilobyte, 1024 kilobytes make a megabyte, 1024 megabytes make a gigabyte.
Windows multiplies it by 1000 (therein forgetting the 24 in every calculation).
Also, the format of your hard drive (most probably FAT32) means that you drive is divided into sectors consisting of 32 bits. Only one type of data is allowed to be in one sector, therefore, a lot of your hard drive goes to waste, because it has saved a file, and there is still most of a sector free, but it cannot be used for any other file.

he is still missing 3gb of space

I only have less than 200mb left on my c drive, but when i open c: on my computer adn select everything there, it says all the files and folders take up only 16gb. My computer is 19gb. I cant figure out why all this space is taken up!

20 gb = 18.6 gb

 

[dnoch]

he is still missing 3gb of space
20 gb = 18.6 gb

Exactly. By your calculation, he is 1.4GB down. A few bits here and there does not make a difference, but when you have a couple thousand sectors only half full, it is very easy to lose the other 1.6GB

 

[EricB]

Exactly. By your calculation, he is 1.4GB down. A few bits here and there does not make a difference, but when you have a couple thousand sectors only half full, it is very easy to lose the other 1.6GB

no that isn't what I'm saying. you know I not the best typer so I shortcut my typing. I was saying that a 20 gig harddrive is alway equal to a real life 18.6 gb (19gb round off), not the actual 20gb. he say his computer is 16 gb full, so roughly 2.6 gb is still missing.

 

[dnoch]

I remain to the conclusion that you are not actually missing space. If I were you, I would either look at buying a bigger hard drive (they are very cheap), or do a serious clean of your current drive. Delete all the crap you don't need.
Also try defragmenting

 

[killians45]

okay, this has been discussed here many times. The normal naming scheme of HDD manufacturers is 1MB = 1000KB. However, the TECHNICAL value is 1Mb = 1024Kb. So do the math. Lets say its a 120 GB, so...

DECIMAL (as shown on HDD boxes by the manufacturers):

There are 1000 bytes per kilobyte (KB).
There are 1000 kilobytes per megabyte (MB) or 1,000,000 bytes.
There are 1000 megabytes per gigabyte (GB) or 1,000,000,000 bytes per gigabyte.

so a 120 gig HDD has 120,000,000,000 bytes in decimal.

BINARY (the ACTUAL amt)

There are 1024 bytes per kilobyte.
There are 1024 kilobytes per megabyte or 1,048,576 bytes.
There are 1024 megabytes per gigabyte or 1,073,741,824 bytes per gigabyte.

Now, take the 120,000,000,000 listed and devide into 1,073,741,824 and we get 111.75870895385742~

OR round it to 111 GB.

Do the same now for the 20GB. Also, keep in mind you have system restore points as well as whatever amount is dedicated for the recycle bin AND the page file (like at 512 memory would be something like 1GB of page file). So it sounds about right to me.

 

[Zanjo]

Well about 7.3% of your hard drive will be lost due to formatting. The 3GB could be made up of hidden files. OR some computers have a hidden partition which has a certain amount of your hard drive in it. I think windows can recognise this partition but does not count it for some reason.

 

[Hefemeister]

I would look into how much drive space is allocated to the recycle bin. default setting is 10% you can get back some space by dropping that down. btw I would reccomend larger disk drive as well.