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    Missing Gigs?

    Discussion in 'HP' started by Micall5, Mar 17, 2007.

  1. Micall5

    Micall5 Notebook Consultant

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    Yesterday I used the vista express upgrade to do a clean install. Aside from a few small driver issues, everything is good. Except... where is all of my space.
    I bought the 160gig 5400rpm drive and it says only 149 is available total and I am using 20 gig???? for what? I tried disk clean up and that gave me 3 gig? again for what hibernation storage? I understand windows vista takes up 10 to 18 gigs but not 31gig. I originally had a jaw dropping moment when I discovered that windows save my old files and I only had like 30 gig left but then I found those out and deleted them.
    Anyone else with the same problem or know where it all is?
     
    Micall5, Mar 17, 2007
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  2. Gautam

    Gautam election 2008 NBR Reviewer

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    Well. there are a few things to consider. You may have a recovery partion, and thats a few gigs. I believe your QuickPlay takes up another few gigs as well. Vista eats 12-15 gigs on its own...and like you say, hibernate can eat one or two. Then, system recovery (you know, save points?) can take up a few gigs. Your recycle bin is probably biting into a gig. Finally, the fat-system itself takes some space for itself...all in all, you never really get the stated amount of space on a hard drive.
     
    Gautam, Mar 17, 2007
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  3. Micall5

    Micall5 Notebook Consultant

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    Thanks, I understand this but it was no where near that little with the XP system relative to vista. I understand vista takes up that much, it seems to be using 7.8 directly and the rest must be else where. But 30??? that seem high to anyone else or am I crazy?
    Thanks.
     
    Micall5, Mar 17, 2007
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  4. zadillo

    zadillo Notebook Virtuoso

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    When you have a 160GB hard drive, it doesn't mean you will have 160GB of storage available. 149GB is more common after formatting. So it sounds like Vista is in fact using around 18 gigs, which is about what is expected.
     
    zadillo, Mar 17, 2007
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  5. coriolis

    coriolis Notebook Nobel Laureate

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    Considering 1kb = 1024b, chaining all the way up to a gig, its to be expected.
     
    coriolis, Mar 17, 2007
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  6. dagamer34

    dagamer34 Notebook Evangelist NBR Reviewer

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    -_-

    Oy, do not confuse base 10 with base 2. 160GB (base 10) is advertised as 160 billion bytes. 160 billion bytes is actually 149GB (base 2).

    Yes, the hard drive manufacturers are screwy but we all have to deal with it. Also, Vista will use about 8GB after installation, and the Vista recovery partition is roughly 7GB. Vista also keeps 15% of your HDD space on reserve for System Restore checkpoints.
     
    dagamer34, Mar 17, 2007
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  7. Micall5

    Micall5 Notebook Consultant

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    Well thanks for the info. As long as everyone is in agreement that it's not out of the norm to have that much taken up I am fine with it.
    Thanks for the help
     
    Micall5, Mar 17, 2007
    #7