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    Stupid question regarding Hard drive space

    Discussion in 'VAIO / Sony' started by melorock, Aug 18, 2009.

  1. melorock

    melorock Notebook Enthusiast

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    I purchased a VGN-SR430J/B and I cleaned it with killdisk and installed windows 7 32bit.

    This model comes with a 320GB HDD, yet when I go to my computer it says that I have 273GB free of 287GB total. So I assume the 14GB (287-273) being used is somehow the 2.5 GB Windows 7 32bit. But 320 - 287 is 33GB, where did it go? Where can I look?


    As always, help is appreciated.
     
    melorock, Aug 18, 2009
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  2. gdansk

    gdansk Notebook Deity

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    It is because hard drive manufacturers say the hard drives size in Gigabytes (10^9 = 1,000,000,000 bytes) where as computers read them in Gibibytes (2^30 = 1,073,741,824 bytes). This accounts for most of the discrepancy... 320GB = 298GiB.

    Edit: I removed my hint that the other ~10GB was from a recovery partition because I thought they were easily visible...
     
    gdansk, Aug 18, 2009
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  3. arth1

    arth1 a҉r҉t҉h

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    The rest of the discrepancy (298 - 287) is almost certainly due to the recovery partition.

    Right-click "My Computer" and choose Manage. Then go to Disk Manager. That will show you what partitions you have on the drive.
     
    arth1, Aug 18, 2009
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  4. melorock

    melorock Notebook Enthusiast

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    Ah I see, you're right

    there's 287.65 GB normal
    Then theres 10.44 GB recovery partion

    So, that's 298ish GB, right on from what gdansk said. Thanks
     
    melorock, Aug 18, 2009
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  5. melorock

    melorock Notebook Enthusiast

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    Wait a minute, now I feel really dumb.

    Is that 10.44 GB...the recycle bin?
     
    melorock, Aug 18, 2009
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  6. arth1

    arth1 a҉r҉t҉h

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    No, it's not. It's a recovery partition with a copy of Windows installation software and Sony extras on it, designed to let you restore your PC to factory condition (same OS and software as it had when it left the factory).

    You will normally be able to start this restore by hitting F10 during boot.
     
    arth1, Aug 18, 2009
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