My HDD space is lower!!!

hi its me again

i got my 6400 today and when i went to check the hard drive space it said it had 60+ gb with about 11gb used (i got an 80gb hdd), and then i went to "clean the drive" or w/e it is and then i restarted the laptop cause of something else..and then when i checked it again, it now says 55.9gb free with 13.6 gb used and a total of 69.6gb!!!! WTF IS GOING ON?????

 

Things like the Dell Diognistics Partition, Media Direct Partition, windows, all the windows stuff and service packs are what take up that space that you dont have. I ordered a 100gb drive, but I only have 91.71GB avalable, the rest is taken up by that stuff. Its normal, and you shouldnt expect to have exactly 80gb, because it will never be that much. It might actually be 79.?? or even less, so you shouldnt worry about it, because its normal.

 

simple...the Dell partitions take some of that 80gb...and computers calculate space differently

WARNING: DO NOT READ THE REST OF THIS POST IF YOU DON'T REALLY CARE FOR TECH INFO
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For instance:
Dell says 1KB is 1000 bytes, but computers say 1KB is 1024 bytes (2^10...pc's like binary)

This is how PC's count it...
1KB = 2^10 bytes (1024 bytes)
1MB = 2^20 (1024 * 1024 bytes)
1GB = 2^30 (1024 * 1024 * 1024 bytes)

This is how Dell counts it...
1KB = 1,000 bytes
1MB = 1,000,000 bytes
1GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes

dell says you have 80GB, which they count as 80,000,000,000 bytes

however: 80,000,000,000 / (2^30) = ~74.5
so you actually have about 74.5GB of space as the computer calculates it.
Then you have the partition, which is about 3-5GB in size. so i'd say you are about right on the space and nothing is wrong.

it has been a long day for me...i hope this post makes sense...if it doesn't I'll try to edit it.

 

Wow, night you just blew my explenation out of the water, nice. But yeah it still holds true, that your hard drive is the correct size, and you dont have to worry about it.

 

Sorry, you beat me to posting and i didn't see it! that's what you get for letting a computer engineer on NBR!
And this is why I need to play Oblivion...get my mind off of CmpE

 

lol...ok thx guys